46
votes
The world’s first true female car crash dummy has been developed in Sweden — and it’s a big deal
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- Authors
- Rupendra Brahambhatt
- Published
- Oct 7 2023
- Word count
- 1092 words
Wow, right out of the 1960s. Thanks for sharing this article. I had no idea crash testing was this simplistic.
That's it? One dummy? Male or female, what about all the people who aren't 5 foot 9 inches weighing 171 pounds? How is this not an extremely obvious oversight even to vaguely sexist highway engineers from 50 years ago? Surely crash test regulators should be aware of the blatant fact that not everyone is shaped the same way? It's not like obesity was invented in 2005. People have been thin or heavy, short or tall, for the entirety of human history. What about children and teenagers??! How does using one "standard" crash test dummy account for that, and how did no one ever "think" to say, "Well, golly gee, we ought to test for everyone who might ride in an automobile, not just an extremely small sliver of the population."
Some articles claim it was a matter of "limited funding," or perceived statistical redundancy (?!), but I seriously do not understand why the US has the money to spend $50 billion+/yr on (often unnecessary and harmful!) highway operation and expansion (it's actually far more than that) but not the paltry amount it would take to fund development and testing of more than literally one crash test dummy for the millions of people driving on those highways. I actually do not believe that it's consistently a matter of funding. I think that someone powerful has had to actively oppose the testing of multiple dummies, every single year, for 50+ years.
I think it is really this: ideological laziness. I would call it negligence which directly leads to automotive deaths. Great job, Ronald Reagan, for the destruction you caused across the country. Your heinous legacy has lasted decades. I'm glad this issue is at least getting attention now. Good on Sweden for stepping up.
This seems overly inflammatory to me. The likeliest explanation is that crash testing started with some dummy modeled on some mean/average driver in the 60s. Then it could just be a combination of economy and wanting to be able to compare results consistently.
When they started running these safety tests, of course they were aware of different body types. But, when you start out, you likely don't test out a lot of combinations given the presumably high cost of each test. Especially if you believe your collecting adequate information anyway (perhaps erroneously). The true test would be if the difference in harm between sexes is removed once this new dummy starts being used. Is it even possible to build a car that is safer to crash in for someone with a low mass compared to someone with a larger mass? Perhaps any reduction in harm would also benefit those that are heavier and with greater bone density anyway?
Anyway, it's great that this dummy now exists!
At least in the US, most people were shorter in the 60's than now. 5 9 was not an average height for a woman at that time at all. A mean dummy that averaged men and women would not have been 5 9.
Indifference to women's safety by the auto industry matches their treatment by other industries at the time. For example married women not being granted separate bank accounts from their husbands. Medical research has long been male only for test subjects in a very high percentage of experiments.
I was curious so I found some figures confirming the average height statistics:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/04news/americans.htm
This stackexchange post[0] also says that 39% of registered drivers were women, ruling out the possibility that "most drivers were male therefore the dummy was deliberately male".
[0]: I was not actually able to verify the link in the stackexchange post, because only the abstract is free to access.
I'd agree with you if it had been 10, maybe even 20 years. But 60 years?! No. That's lazy and malicious.
Lazy, yes. Negligent, maybe (new data will tell us). Malicious, I doubt it.
Also Grover Norquist and Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand and the oligarchs who backed and funded their ideology. Many in my generation were seduced by these ideas.
Well that's long overdue.
It'd be interesting to see a retrospective review of the relationship between MVA fatalities and height/weight. I wonder if there's a significant relationship between likelihood of fatality and magnitude of difference from the standard dummy's 5'9"/171lb height and weight.
I'd be curious too, particularly since statistically you're now more likely to survive a car crash than in the past
I had a real Mandela effect moment where I was absolutely positive that there was a female character in the Incredible Crash Dummies cartoon/toyline but apparently Darlene was never released and only existed as a prototype.
Why stop there? They should take a few more body frames into account. I'm a 5'11" dude who's built like a noodle and weighs much less than your average guy thanks to lanky genetics.