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Consider the Following

If Your Female Crash Test Dummies Don’t Survive The Crash, Keep Working

by Jill Pantozzi | 12:32 pm, March 27th, 2012


When you read up on a car’s safety rating, you’d assume the tests they used to determine them included men, women, and children crash dummies, right? Apparently not! Hit the jump to find out what happened to safety ratings when car companies put a female crash dummy in the front seat. 

The Washington Post has a story about Beth Milito, who purchased a 2011 Toyota Sienna minivan based on recommendations from friends as well as the vehicles four-star safety rating. “But tucked into the details of the government’s crash test results was another rating that Milito said she never saw, which now has her wondering about her own safety,” writes the Post. “The front passenger seat on Milito’s Sienna received two out of five stars on the frontal crash test, a fall from the top five-star rating for that seat on the Sienna’s 2010 and older models.”

Why did it get a lower rating? “Starting with 2011 models, the federal government replaced an average-size male dummy with a smaller female dummy for some tests. When the 2011 Sienna was slammed into a barrier at 35 mph, the female dummy in the front passenger seat registered a 20 to 40 percent risk of being killed or seriously injured, according to the test data.” And they don’t know the numbers for women in the driver’s seat because they never sat a female dummy there.

Well that’s…concerning.

“When we’re out and about as a family, I’m the one sitting in that seat,” said Milito.

“Consumer advocates say the female dummy’s subpar performance in some top-selling vehicles reveals a need to better study women and smaller people in collisions. Until recently, only male dummies were used during more than three decades of government testing aimed at helping car buyers choose between vehicles,” writes the Post who also added that a female dummy can serve to mimic a 12-year-old child, who could also potentially be sitting in the front seat.

“Auto safety watchdog groups say they’ve been pushing NHTSA [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] to go beyond the average-sized male dummy since the agency launched the star-rating system in 1978. They say those tests should take into account not only women but the increasing elderly and obese populations and larger children who have outgrown child safety seats,” according to the Post. “The tests, they say, also miss average women who fall between the 50th percentile male dummy, which stands 5-feet-9 and 172 pounds, and the unusually petite female dummy, which is 4-feet-11 and 108 pounds.”

Saying I’m concerned is actually putting it lightly, I’m a woman with a rather small frame. I’m shocked to find out safety measures don’t account for people like me. That seems rather negligent, no? What are your thoughts?

(via Washington Post)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/eva.heater Eva Marie Heater

    Yes, they really should examine these things. I’m 5′ 1″, which is short but not THAT short, and in every car I’ve ever owned, the seat belt strap goes RIGHT ACROSS MY THROAT, no matter how much I adjust it!!! For a long time, I was driving with my left arm over the shoulder strap, which really helped, but recently got pulled over by a state trooper and given a warning about not wearing my seat belt properly. 

  • http://twitter.com/krisrudin Kris Rudin

    This is a prime example of the “male-ification” of our society. “Independent tests show…” “Studies prove…”, etc – 99% of these studies/tests were performed on MALE subjects and their results do not apply to women, and my actually be harmful to women, in the case of drugs. 

    Another example is the whole thing of “heart attack symptoms/warnings” – we all think it’s the usual pain in the chest & left arm. NOT FOR WOMEN. For women it can be as varied as nausea, diarrhea, jaw pain, shortness of breath – all w/o chest pain! (I’m a bit intense on this subject, as my best friend died last year of a heart attack, and no one – including her – knew she was having a heart attack until she died. PLEASE read up on heart attack symptoms for women!)

  • http://twitter.com/acidragdoll Bel

    I thought of the heart attack example too! 

    I’m sorry to hear about your friend – I heard of the women’s symptoms for heart attack through a tumblr post.

    Women really are invisible.

  • http://sdhardie.tumblr.com Sheila

    This is a textbook definition of male privilege. I’m a small woman too, so yes it’s definitely disconcerting.

  • Anonymous

    That’s… screwed up and pretty half ass IMO. Like with everything else, why is ignoring half your consumer base considered good business?

  • Anonymous

    I’m sorry for your loss.

    My mom, a RN for 30 years, suffered a heart attack and even SHE didn’t realize what it was. She had jaw pain for 24 hours and I randomly freaked out and forced her to see the doctor. If I hadn’t she would never have known she had a MASSIVE heart attack and probably would have died from related complications. She’s a NURSE.

  • http://tentacled-testing.tumblr.com/ Kate Falanga

    You don’t need to be a hard core feminist to be upset by this.  

  • Marie Hix

    I’m 5’11″ and those damn seatbelts always go right across my neck, too. I’d rather have a boob-friendly five-point harness, come to think of it…

  • http://deird1.dreamwidth.org Deird

    My sister and I always thought that movie theatre seats were really uncomfortable – until the day we realised that they were designed for someone about five inches taller than us. If you push yourself up and lean back, the seats are incredibly comfortable! They’re just… not designed for us.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christina-Newhall/13307033 Christina Newhall

    Does it strike anyone else as kind of…pre-50s…to never put a woman in the driver’s seat?  A man has driven my car exactly once since I bought it, when my dad took over for a couple of hours on a long drive. Other than that, it’s always me driving, because it’s MY CAR.
    …Never been happier to be closer to the “male average” in size (take that, body insecurities!)

  • http://twitter.com/antiavenger Mike Perry

    Don’t take this the wrong way women but I feel for ya. I’m not exactly comfortable that the average male dummy is 5′ 9″ as I’m 6′ 5″. There’s a good 8″ of difference in there! I hope that doesn’t mean my head rolling along the road in the case of an accident!

  • Adam Whitley

    more like average sized male privilege if you’re a small guy you’re just as dead

  • http://sdhardie.tumblr.com Sheila

    The process (assuming that the “default” person in a given scenario is male), not the result (injured men or women), reflects the privilege.

  • http://twitter.com/zaewen Zaewen

    This is so true, far too much of our knowledge of medicine, psychology, and other subjects comes from tests carried out on men by men. Female perspectives or female populations are rarely ever accounted for and it causes a lot of problems in a lot of arenas. And it does get women killed and harmed in myriads of ways all the time.
    And I am so sorry for your loss, I can’t imagine how painful it would be to lose someone close like that.

  • Victoria Eden

    This makes me scared to get in my car.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=659768962 Lauren Ekkebus

    That’s what I was thinking! I’m a female about the size of that 50th percentile dummy, but a good deal of my friends are on opposite ends of the spectrum(like, gee, MOST OF HUMANITY). Look at data like this and you know why I was too scared to drive until I was 26.

  • http://twitter.com/proptart27 Stephanie

    “The female dummy is not put in the driver’s seat on the frontal crash test, he said, because men drive more and die in greater numbers than female drivers.”
    A woman drives my car 100% of the time.  I would like to be confident that it was tested with me in mind.

  • This is Basic

    5’5″~5’6″ish and it’s the same damn thing. Slips right up my chest and into my throat. Particularly when wearing a sports bra. I never did the left arm thing, but had noticed others do it. Instead I ended up doing some sort of seat belt based Rodney Dangerfield impression.

  • This is Basic

    Well put.

    Also, I don’t even see how that is remotely a valid argument in defense of not putting female dummies in the driver’s seat. Even if it was an edge case, and it’s not, this is a safety test, not a most-favorable-outcome-for-our-product test. If you’re serious about safety, there is NO reason to not test this.

  • Anonymous

    Why discussing male versus female? It seems there should be used a range of dummies in different sizes. If some research confirms that size and weight are important than may be 2 dummies might do. A small and light one and a large and “big” one. One series of dummy experiments of various shapes in the same car could clarify that in case it has not been done yet.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003349751909 Fabian Kauz

     I don’t know how it is here in germany… we are said to be often
    over-regulated…. especially in terms of cars. but from the designers
    point of view: in ergonomic
    basics, we learned, that you usually consider the 5%ile female and the
    95%ile male. in fact: that is not about sex, its about size. to only
    consider the 50%ile male is equally dumb as to use the 50%ile general
    citizen or generally speaking: every single percentile you pick. you
    have to have a range of variants, to design “good”. For everyone
    unfamiliar with the terminology, the 5%ile female is just a bit smaller
    and the 95%ile male a bit bigger than the others genders aequivaltent.
    its just a term, u could also say we use the lets say 3rd – 97th
    percentile general citizen.

    That said, thats not even all: i am only talking grown up peole..
    children are a whole different story, and if i ever work in a safety
    sensitive project i have to inform myself on that topic…. different
    bonestructure, bigger head, less muscles…

    Its interesting to read womens points of view, as i am male and like to
    rotate problems to different angles to get better perspectives. Thats why i am reading a feminist geek blog. :)

    Some of the comments here are pretty interesting. Society would profit
    from more female designers/engineers/ “creators” in general.

  • Leona

    thank you for your last comment :)

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