Federal government to require car companies to use female crash test dummies (NBC News)
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using dummies that are representative of women.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled an advanced female crash test dummy — the THOR-05F — that could help close the staggering gap of higher injury rates for women than for men in certain crash scenarios.
Maria Weston Kuhn, who launched the nonprofit Drive Action Fund to advocate for better car safety testing for women, experienced the statistical issue herself when she sustained life-altering injuries in a car crash several years ago. Recent studies have found that women are 73% more likely to be seriously injured in head-on car crashes compared with men in the same crashes. And female drivers and front-seat passengers are 17% more likely to be killed than their male counterparts in the same seats.
But it took about four and a half decades for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to approve the use of a dummy anatomically representative of the average female in terms of height, weight and body type even though advanced models — like the THOR-05F by Humanetics, a leading producer of crash test dummies — have been available for years.
“While I’m the first to acknowledge that this took far longer than anyone would like, it was very important to make sure that we got this right,” Jonathan Morrison, the highway safety agency's administrator, said at a vehicle safety research meeting in Washington, D.C. “We’re releasing design specifications for the first-ever advanced female crash test dummies.”
Morrison said the announcement means “automakers will be able to start purchasing the dummy and using it in tests, learning more about how it will perform before NHTSA formally adopts it for use in ratings and rule makings.”
“This is a crucial step towards the full adoption of this new dummy and learning even more about how to design vehicles to better protect female drivers and passengers,” he added.
While the THOR-05F is not expected to be used in new car safety testing until 2027 or 2028, the technical details released by the highway safety agency are a major step forward. The data will allow automakers to design safety features based on new specifications and not the current standards, which have not been updated since the 1980s.
The standard “female” crash test dummy in use today, known as the Hybrid III, weighs 108 pounds and is 4 feet, 11 inches tall. It was created in the 1970s and is based on the smallest 5% of American women.
