Car manufacturers and safety programs always use male dummies in crash tests. The result is a significantly increased risk of injury and death among women. For how much longer?
Women have a significantly higher risk of injury in a car accident than men. The reason: when developing a car, crash data from male dummies is used. This is about to change soon.
Humans have almost never sacrificed themselves when cars competed in crash tests. For 70 years, the tough job has been done by dolls whose size and weight are based on humans. There are dummies, as the dolls are called, in the average size of a man, but also in the format of children. Female dolls, however, were never used until recently. A discrimination that goes to life.
The so-called “gender safety gap” is particularly serious when you consider that women placed in a front seat run a higher risk of injury and death than men. A 2018 study by the NHTSA found that women were 17 percent more likely to die in a car accident than men. In a frontal collision, women are 73 percent more likely than men to be seriously injured, even when wearing a seat belt. The risk of whiplash is particularly high in women.
Incorrect prerequisites for vehicle construction
The background: So far, cars have been designed in such a way that they comply with the applicable safety standards. Proof of this is a high rating in vehicle tests by independent safety programs such as Euro NCAP (Europe), NHTSA (North America) or C-NCAP (China). The tests also include crash tests with dummies. However, female dummies were never used, but the dummy of a – roughly simplified – small man to approximate the female physique. Not enough, as the American study shows. Side airbags, headrests and also the pedal arrangement are aimed at the average man.
The average sizes of crash test dummies according to the US safety agency NHTSA (left) and the US accident prevention center CDC vary enormously. However, there are no female dummies for either of them.
The most modern form of a crash test dummy is the “Thor” model, whose spine and pelvic area have been improved. The dummy contains the highest density of different sensors to date, including a large number in the face area, in order to be able to better document facial injuries in particular during the crash test. “Thor” was developed by the TH Dresden and is built in Münster. The sensors for the dummies are processed by the Winterthur company Kistler. In industry, the “Thor 50th Male” has been mandatory by Euro NCAP since 2020. 50th stands for the size that should apply to 50 percent of all women.
The deficiencies of such male puppets for simulating accidents involving females are obvious. Body length, pelvic width and primary sexual characteristics do not correspond to those of an average female body. As a result, when building vehicles, female characteristics are not taken into account when it comes to safety. A make-up mirror in the sun visor cannot compensate for the shortcoming.
The “Spiegel” wrote three years ago about sexist crash test dummies and sees the reason for the lack of female dolls in the enormous costs for the production of dummies: A doll can cost up to one million francs, because it has to be the right weight, everyone Limbs, joints and the most important bone structures, such as the spine. In addition, there are a number of sensors for measuring, for example, the impact pressure or the G-forces – and this on most parts of the body.
Incorrect ergonomic assumptions
But what is the reason for the increased number of deaths and serious injuries among women in cars? Women often have to push the driver’s seat far forward to reach the pedals in the car. This position is not only uncomfortable but also very dangerous because the pedals are positioned for men with an average height of 175 centimeters. If there is a car accident, the distance to the dashboard is too small for women. The airbags, which shoot out of the steering wheel hub in the event of an impact, only insufficiently reach their destination.
In addition, there is an increased risk of whiplash, since female cervical spines are less stable than males. The active head restraints installed in many vehicle seats today spring forward in the event of an impact in order to absorb the head’s kickback. But for the average woman’s body, this happens too little. This is another problem with designing new cars using crash data from male dummies.
Rescue is near, but the industry is not yet joining in
The Swedish researcher Astrid Linder wanted to change the situation. She developed an average female dummy named Eva. The difficulty was the evaluation of all available accident data. Linder is now the development director of the Swedish Transport Institute. She realized that designing a female crash dummy would take a long time due to the large data sets. So she started with average values to build a first, still virtual female dummy. “If we wait for all available data, we will wait forever,” Astrid Linder said in a 2019 interview with Consumer Reports.
Astrid Linder has reached the intermediate goal: the female dummy is called Eva, but is not yet in regular use.
The «Thor 5th ATD» is one of the first dummies to take female measurements into account.
There is now a Thor dummy with female masses. “The main differences between the average female and male dummy are weight, height, body shape (body and pelvis) and spine stiffness,” explained Linder, who received the 2020 Gender Star of the Year» received.
Unfortunately, until now, female dummies have hardly been used in the automotive industry. There are also no dummy women in the crash tests of the security programs. It only differentiates between adults and children. From the point of view of the number of traffic accidents, it is high time that women now also make it into the crash test.