Trying to replicate what happens in a car crash in order to improve safety is not an easy task, especially when people are getting older and fatter and the dummies stay the same.
However, there is at least one manufacturer in the US that is making crash test dummies bigger and older, writes The Sacramento Bee, and this includes a prototype based on an overweight 70-year old woman, and another one that weighs 273 pounds (124 kg), which is 100 pounds (45 kg) more than the previous design.
“The typical patient today is overweight or obese – they’re the rule rather than the exception. You can’t talk about injuries without talking about the person“, said the Director of the University of Michigan International Center for Automotive Medicine, Dr. Stewart Wang. “The condition, size, and shape of an individual are hugely important in how severe their injuries are in any given crash.“
Backing up Dr. Wang’s statement are the frontal crashes results, where it has been noticed that obese drivers tend to slider under the lap belt, resulting in an increased rate of severe injuries to the lower extremities. Additionally, adding the elderly dummy prototype, with a body-mass index of 29, was mandatory, since a person’s chest structure changes between the ages of 20 to 80, and if ignored, it could lead to severe chest trauma.
“Few would have envisioned that people would drive into their 80s, but we have to look at that. As the population changes, we must have test equipment that resembles consumers today“, added the President and CEO of Humanetics, a crash-test dummy maker, based in Plymouth, Michigan, Chris O’Connor.
Screenshot via Youtube/ABC