"Calls for an accurate female crash test dummy date back decades. Consumer Reports has traced them back to 1980. In the early 2000s, regulators added a small "female" dummy to tests but it was just a scaled-down version of the male dummy, with breasts attached. That doesn't reflect the real anatomical differences between male and female bodies. Around the same time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) started thinking about creating a more accurate female dummy."
"The new dummy is called the THOR-05F, or Test device for Human Occupant Restraint, 5th-percentile Female. (That is to say, a very small woman.) It's actually based on the female body. "The pelvis for a female is more rounded and does not hold the seatbelt the same way," says Chris O'Connor, the CEO of manufacturing company Humanetics. He also pointed to anatomical differences in the neck, and significant differences in the lower leg that are correlated with much higher rates of leg injuries in women."
Vehicle safety testing in the U.S. has relied on crash test dummies modeled on a male body, contributing to higher injury rates among women even after controlling for crash severity and vehicle size. Earlier attempts used a scaled-down male dummy with breasts, which failed to capture key anatomical differences. For over a decade NHTSA partnered with Humanetics to design a genuinely female-based dummy. The new THOR-05F represents a 5th-percentile female and incorporates female pelvis geometry, distinct neck characteristics, and lower-leg features linked to higher female leg injury rates. European regulators had already moved toward adopting the design.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]