Car passengers are safer in crashes because of technological advances. Women are more likely to be seriously injured or die in a crash than men are, and they are also more likely to have injuries such as broken bones or concussions. The first crash-test dummy prototype will be modeled on an average-sized woman.
Despite the improvements in crash safety, the injury statistics show that the gap between men and women isn't decreasing.
She and her team finished a 412 year project to create and test a dummy in a laboratory in Linkping, Sweden. It is 1.66 centimeters tall and has the proportions of a woman. The team focused on the motion of the spine, neck and shoulders to recreate how a woman's body would react in a crash.
In the US and the European Union, only dummies that look like a male are required by law. The rules don't give companies incentives to take into account the rest of the population
Christopher O'Connor, chief executive officer of Humanetics Group, the industry leader in crash-test dummy manufacturing, said that women should be angry. If you're a male or female, a car should be safe.
New dummies are being worked on by Humanetics to become standard. The THOR-5F is a female dummy with 150 measuring sensors that are designed to address areas where women have increased vulnerability to injury. Previous female dummies were scaled down versions of the male models, which was a big improvement according to O'Connor. THOR-5F is designed to look like a small woman at the fifth percentile of the female population. He says that the company has sold a few dozen to auto manufacturers and leading laboratories.
Lotta Jakobsson, senior technical specialist of injury prevention at Volvo, said that the company is interested in the THOR-5F, but it would take a lot of work to make a purchase. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the US is working with Humanetics to make THOR-5F's chest more durable. She says that the first prototype of THOR-5F was presented several years ago and will be at least another year before it can be purchased. She says they'll buy the dummies when they're good enough. She says that they prefer to work from home. Buying a dummy is a very large investment.
The cost of a Humanetics THOR device is about $1 million, but it can vary a lot depending on the data acquisition system used. While computer simulation can help accelerate automobile product development and enable a wider range of occupant sizes to be evaluated, engineers need physical tests to see how the steel, seat-belt and air bag explosions operate in reality. He says physical testing will always be required.
Jessica Jermakian is the head of vehicle research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit funded by the US insurance industry. She says that if you put a female dummy in the driver seat it won't make a difference. We need to think about more than one thing. We need to think of ways to reduce speeding, ways to prevent crashes, and ways to remove incompatibility between larger and smaller cars.
According to research published last year, the risk of crashes for women is related to the type of vehicle they drive and the circumstances of the collision. According to the IIHS, women are more likely than men to drive struck vehicles in side-impact and front-to-rear crashes.
The challenge of moving her female dummy from a prototype to a tool that resembles a woman's mobility patterns isn't going to deter her. It could take years of testing and research. She plans to do what a researcher does. Get new funding and keep going.
Self-driving cars are going nowhere after $100 billion.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
