Crash Test Dummies Shaped Like Women Would Improve Vehicle Safety, Senators Say

It’s well established that U.S. crash test dummies don’t reflect the population. While female crash test dummies are used in other parts of the world, our crash tests still only use a dummy representing an average 5’9″, 171-pound man, and a scaled-down male design that more closely resembles a 12-year-old girl than an adult woman. Previous calls to change this have gone unanswered, so now a bipartisan group of senators wants to force a change by law.

CBS News reports that Senators Deb Fischer, Tammy Duckworth, Marsha Blackburn, and Patty Murray are sponsoring the She Drives Act. This bill would require NHTSA crash tests to include the THOR-05F dummy, representing a 5th-percentile woman at 4’11” and 104 pounds, in addition to the 50th-percentile male THOR-50M dummy currently in use for front impact tests. The THOR-05F simulates not only size differences between men and women but also anatomical differences. Side impact testing would also require specific 50th-percentile male and 5th-percentile female models to be used.

CBS News cites a NHTSA report stating that women are 73% more likely to suffer injuries in a crash than men. This information appears to come from a 2019 University of Virginia report rather than NHTSA, but the data is no less valid. NHTSA has also found that a seat-belted woman driver or front passenger is 17% more likely to be killed than a man. 

While IIHS incorrectly assumes the reason for this is that women drive smaller cars, the real reason is that cars are being designed to pass crash tests using dummies that simulate men, not women. It’s only natural that manufacturers will design their cars to pass these government tests, despite the tests being flawed in this way. Half of all drivers are women, and cars should be designed so that anyone of any gender will be safer.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office had previously requested that NHTSA change its testing methodology to take “more-vulnerable classes of occupants,” such as women and children, into account. The She Drives Act would give this mandate teeth, requiring NHTSA to comply. It’s one of the few things Democrat and Republican Senators seem to agree on these days.