It is effectively established that U.S. crash check dummies do not mirror the inhabitants. Whereas feminine crash check dummies are utilized in different components of the world, our crash assessments nonetheless solely use a dummy representing a median 5’9″, 171-pound man, and a scaled-down male design that extra carefully resembles a 12-year-old lady than an grownup lady. Earlier calls to alter this have gone unanswered, so now a bipartisan group of senators desires to pressure a change by regulation.
CBS Information reviews that Senators Deb Fischer, Tammy Duckworth, Marsha Blackburn, and Patty Murray are sponsoring the She Drives Act. This invoice would require NHTSA crash assessments to incorporate the THOR-05F dummy, representing a Fifth-percentile lady at 4’11” and 104 kilos, along with the Fiftieth-percentile male THOR-50M dummy presently in use for entrance affect assessments. The THOR-05F simulates not solely dimension variations between women and men but additionally anatomical variations. Aspect affect testing would additionally require particular Fiftieth-percentile male and Fifth-percentile feminine fashions for use.
Vehicles are presently examined for males, not for girls
CBS Information cites a NHTSA report stating that ladies are 73% extra more likely to undergo accidents in a crash than males. This data seems to return from a 2019 College of Virginia report slightly than NHTSA, however the information isn’t any much less legitimate. NHTSA has additionally discovered {that a} seat-belted lady driver or entrance passenger is 17% extra more likely to be killed than a person.
Whereas IIHS incorrectly assumes the explanation for this is that ladies drive smaller automobiles, the actual cause is that automobiles are being designed to cross crash assessments utilizing dummies that simulate males, not ladies. It is solely pure that producers will design their automobiles to cross these authorities assessments, regardless of the assessments being flawed on this method. Half of all drivers are ladiesand automobiles ought to be designed in order that anybody of any gender shall be safer.
The U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace had beforehand requested that NHTSA change its testing methodology to take “more-vulnerable courses of occupants,” resembling ladies and youngsters, into consideration. The She Drives Act would give this mandate enamel, requiring NHTSA to conform. It is one of many few issues Democrat and Republican Senators appear to agree on nowadays.
