The first crash test dummy designed to mimic a woman’s body has finally been developed by a team of Swedish researchers, hoping to end the long history of man-centric safety in cars. Standing at an average height of 162 centimeters (5 feet 3 inches) and weighing 62 kilograms (137 pounds), the dummy will look to replace current methods, which woefully misrepresent a woman’s body in almost every dimension.
In the 1970s, the development of the crash test dummy revolutionized car safety. Suddenly, car manufacturers could quite literally smash their designs into concrete walls and measure the impacts on the human body, a test that not many actual humans were willing to partake in. Since then, these crash test dummies have become more advanced and more representative of a human body – well, a male body, at least.
This is exactly where the problem lies. It might surprise you to know that crash test dummies are always either male, or children, and women in the car are often just represented by a smaller version of the male dummy. The mini-man dummy is about the size of a twelve-year-old girl, at just 149 cm (4 ft 8 ins) tall. In the eyes of car manufacturers, people are either men, or children.