Democrat Calls For ‘Gender Equality’ In Crash Test Dummies

Democratic Washington, D.C., Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill Tuesday that would require car crash test dummies to use both male and female models.

“Women have achieved equality on the road when it comes to driving, but when it comes to safety testing to keep them safe on the road, they are nowhere near achieving equality,” Norton said in a statement. “Crash test standards are incredibly antiquated, and we must update these standards now, especially as more people return to their daily commute in the next few months.”

Norton, who chairs the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, noted the federal government uses crash test dummies based on male bodies and car companies are not required to use female models.

“More important than differences in average height between males and females, there are also biological differences in anatomy, such as average neck strength and posture, that affect how female and male bodies react in a crash,” Norton’s office said in a statement. (RELATED: ‘True Equality Comes From Real Achievement’: Female Army Ranger Says Lowering Standards For Military Women Is A Mistake)

Car companies still typically use a dummy modeled off of the 50th percentile male, which was standardized in the 1970’s, according to Consumer Reports. The dummy is a 171-pound, five-foot nine-inch male, even though the average male today is 26 pounds heavier, according to the report. Female dummies, however, are far and few in between.

While males tend to drive more miles than women and are more likely to speed, drive under the influence and not wear a seatbelt, according to Consumer Reports, women are more likely to die.

AUBURN HILLS, MI – AUGUST 19: A crash-test dummy sits in a testing sled at Takata’s current crash-testing facility August 19, 2010 in Auburn Hills, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Female drivers and passengers are roughly 17% more likely to be killed in a car crash than a male occupant of the same age, according to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“Females are not just smaller versions of males,” co-scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Kristy Abrogast said, according to Consumer Reports. “They’re put together differently. Their material properties–their structure– is different.”

The NHTSA does have two female crash dummies, one which represents the 5th percentile adult female who is four-feet eleven-inches and weighs 108 pounds, and a “small adult female” with the same height but weighing only 97 pounds.

But Consumer Reports notes the dummies do not take into account “the biological differences between male and female bodies” and that in frontal crash tests performed using the 5th percentile female dummy, the dummy rides as a passenger rather than the driver’s seat.

“The reality of progress in automotive safety is that it heavily relies on regulation,” Automotive Safety Engineer at Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center Emily Thomas said. “Unless the federal motor vehicle safety standards require dynamic crash testing with average-sized female crash dummies in multiple seating positions, driver side included, the dummy industry and automakers won’t make that leap themselves.”

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