This Groundbreaking Test Dummy Design Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago

When vehicles are crash-tested for safety, dummies representing the human form are used as substitutes to determine how much damage one would sustain in the collision. Crash testing is an important part of vehicle certification, and a handful of vehicles have even been recalled or banned from the U.S. as a result of failing to meet NHTSA safety standards.

To make crash tests effective, the tests, vehicles, and dummies need to all be representative of an actual accident. That's easy enough on the vehicle and test side of things — determine your test speed and send a production model of the car flying towards another vehicle, concrete block, or other obstacle using a set of rails and pulleys. Crash test dummies are another story, though — any change in the proportions of a person, and indeed the dummy, can change the mechanics and outcome of an accident. As such, dummies need to accurately represent a range of potential passengers, and this is where the problem comes in.

Currently, the NHTSA has a number of crash test dummies, including two adult males, several children, an infant, and two labelled as a 5th percentile adult female — which weighs in at 108 lbs and measures four foot, eleven inches — and a small adult female, which is the same height but weighs only 97 lbs. You might notice that this lineup of test dummies is shockingly lacking of a truly representative female form, which is potentially problematic in a very real, non-theoretical way.

Though the NHTSA has extensive data on bio-mechanics, it and other safety organizations still rely on third parties to develop and produce crash test dummies. One team in Sweden is working on a more representative female dummy. In an interview with NPR, Astrid Linder — the leader of the project to create the female dummy — says that apart from just weight and size, the way that the head moves in relation to the torso is different in females compared to males. Females tend to have lower joint stiffness and less muscle to stabilize joints, which increases risk of injury if not accounted for.

According to a reporting by Consumer Reports, women are at greater risk for injury and death during accidents, with data showing that female occupants are 73% more likely to be injured in a frontal collision. Female occupants wearing a seat belt in the front seat of a vehicle were also shown to be 17% more likely to die in a vehicle accident than a male in the same position. In an interview with Bloomberg, Jason Forman — a researcher at University of West Virginia's Center for Applied Biomechanics — states that different distribution of mass, changes in proportion, and subtle differences in bone structure and connective tissues can make a big difference in how a body reacts to an accident. As vehicles get safer overall, the safety testing needs to be refined to identify the blind spots and biases.