Engineers has finally developed the first female crash test dummy

Researchers have only just now, 73 years after the origination of crash test dummies, developed a female mannequin to put through its paces. Up until this point investigators were using a smaller replica of the male test unit, which is more proportional to that of a 12-year-old girl.

A team of Swedish engineers has finally developed the first dummy, or to use the more technical term - seat evaluation tool - designed on the body of the average woman. Their dummy is 162cm (5ft 3ins) tall and weighs 62kg (9st 7lbs), more representative of the female population.

The dummy has been developed at a Swedish testing lab lead by Astrid Linder, the director of traffic safety at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute. According to the BBC:

"Dr Linder believes her research can help shape the way cars are specified in the future and she stresses the key differences between men and women. Females are shorter and lighter than males, on average, and they have different muscle strengths. Because of this they physically respond differently in a car crash."

Currently there is no legal requirement for car safety tests to be carried out on anything other than the average man. Although some car companies are already using them in their own safety tests they are not yet used in EU or US regulatory tests.

Now that the dummy has been developed, legislators will need to tweak their testing requirements to enforce its use.

Source: BBC