“Her name is SET 50F and she’s the world’s first female crash test dummy, designed by a Swedish engineer to help make sure women are better protected in cars.
Legislation only requires carmakers to conduct crash tests with dummies based on male proportions – a model dating back to the 1970s – even though statistics show that women are more at risk of injury in the event of a frontal collision.
Carmakers have used smaller-sized versions of male dummies to represent women and children, but those have not taken into account the different morphology of women’s bodies.
Astrid Linder, an engineer at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), decided to change that with ‘the world’s first average-sized female crash test dummy,’ according to VTI. …
AFP(Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
‘The muscles in the neck are normally weaker in a woman,’ says Tommy Petterson, one of Linder’s colleagues at VTI, pointing to the nape of the dummy’s neck, deformed by the impact.
‘If you compare it with a male dummy, this neck is more flexible and has more movement.’
Narrow shoulders, wide hips
Tested in Sweden since late 2022, the female prototype made of rubber, metal and plastic is fitted with 24 sensors, measures 162 centimetres (5 feet, 3 inches) and weighs 62 kilogrammes. That is 15cm and 15kg fewer than a male crash test dummy.
Her shoulders are also narrower and her hips wider.
These differences, as well as a lower centre of gravity, play an important role in evaluating the risks women face in a car accident.
AFP(Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
…According to a 2019 study from the University of Virginia in the United States, women are 73-percent more likely than men to be injured in the event of a frontal collision.
They are also twice as likely to suffer whiplash injuries in an accident because of the morphology of their necks and the design of neck supports in cars.”
-Kantarci, Vi. (2023, September 21). Meet the world’s first female crash test dummy, her name is set 50f. News24. https://www.news24.com/life/motoring/news/meet-the-worlds-first-female-crash-test-dummy-her-name-is-set-50f-20230921
It’s absolutely embarrassing that the human race has only just made a proportionally female crash test dummy in 2023. For years and years, half of the world’s population has been at significant risk of injury in car collisions simply because nobody cared to make an accurate crash test dummy for women. Car safety testers have simply said “good enough” after the creation of a smaller version of the male dummy to represent women (really just representing the smallest adults in the 5th percentile) was created in 1988.
This is why it’s important to represent different groups of people when designing. Whether it be the disparity of morphology between the sexes being considered or simply cultural differences being represented, it’s crucial to design with every user in mind.
