Comment on flowers for the lost
SomethingBlack@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Has an “anatomically correct female crash test dummy” actually helped? What even is an “anatomically correct female crash test dummy” and how does it encompass all women’s body types in a way that the, assumedly anatomically correct male crash test dummy wouldn’t accommodate?
I am absolutely uneducated on this but to my uneducated mind this sounds like getting riled up over a non-issue.
“An anatomically correct female crash test dummy is a test device designed to more accurately represent the body shape and dimensions of women, particularly in areas like the pelvis and upper chest, which are more vulnerable in car crashes. These dummies, unlike the older scaled-down male dummies, incorporate features like a female-shaped pelvis, breasts, and a lower center of gravity to better assess how different car safety features affect female occupants.”
-Google AI Overview
Ok, I hadn’t considered the differently shaped pelvis and rib cage so I’ll concede that it makes sense.
Even still, to my mind (again, not educated in this area) the breasts themselves are not going to be a factor in terms of a car crash assuming seatbelts are correctly worn
Except they would be? Having breasts, especially large ones, changes where the seat belt sits. It can not be flat against the chest. Generally either is above the tits cutting into your throat, or underneath them doing…poorly as a restraint. Or maybe attempting to cut them in half but not doing well because bras won’t let that happen.
I was going to say there’s also the option of in-between but that is dependant on clothing, but you beat me to it 😅
You’ve convinced me that it’s reasonable that it could effect the outcome. But in that case, we’re averaging out a large variance in size, which as you said (and I agree) could change the outcome dramatically.
This was my original problem with the “anatomically correct” part of the statement. There is no “anatomically correct” male or female, only approximations. This effectively excludes people at the extremes of physical characteristics from these safety tests
Do those also account for pregnant people (masc, fem and enby)?
First thing that springs to mind is the chest strap on a seatbelt interacting with boobs
Previously what was used was a male crash test dummy but sized down. The word “dummy” makes it easy to overlook, but they’re pretty technologically impressive bits of kit. They take into account the density of different tissues and their relative distribution in the body, and there are strategically placed sensors to measure the force distribution at different levels. It doesn’t encompass all women’s body types, in much the same way that the male dummy doesn’t encompass all men’s body types.
Lots of little differences between male and female bodies cumulatively result in the vehicle collision injury stats that others have quoted elsewhere in this thread. Things like the centre of mass being different, the outline of the pelvis/hips (which also affects the way one sits), women having a greater body fat percentage, that body fat being distributed differently to men’s, women have less muscle. Then there’s boobs, which aren’t just something that can hinder seatbelt placement, but they can also be heavy, and bouncy, which means that the forces involved in a collision can be multiple times more than their weight, which contributes to whiplash and other injuries. On top of this, there’s probably a bunch of other factors that we aren’t aware of yet, but a more comprehensive testing process could help us to understand what differences between male and female bodies actually matter when it comes to vehicle safety. For example, on average, women tend to have longer hair than men, but I don’t expect that would particularly impact injury rate in a vehicle collision. Women having larger breasts than men however, is most certainly a factor that contributed to the stats for women’s injury rates being so much higher than men’s.
On top of all this, before a dedicated female crash test dummy was designed, the downsized male dummy they were using was laughably small — the male one was designed to be the size of the average man at the time, whereas the downsized male one was so small that it only represented the smallest 5% of women at the time. That just seems absurd to me, but it’s what you get when 50% of the population are treated as an afterthought, I suppose.
On the question of does an anatomically correct dummy help, it’s a complex question because it takes time for the developments in car safety to actually make it out to the consumer, and even now we have a better crash test dummy for women, some manufacturers have been sluggish in implementing it into their testing — though now at least it’s possible to apply pressure and say “hey, why are you not using this in your testing when women are at much higher risk when in one of your cars”. Previously, manufacturers who were challenged on this could just shrug and blame the lack of an anatomically correct female crash test dummy, and development of one of those took a lot of time and research expertise, so wasn’t something that could be done trivially. Now the resource exists and the industry has less of an excuse.
9point6@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
www.theactuary.com/2023/…/when-human-isnt-female
Before intervention
17% more dead women than men 73% more injured women than men When women are in fewer crashes overall
SomethingBlack@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I appreciate your effort to find that data but it doesn’t really address any of my original questions.
Also, from what you’ve quoted at least, there is no differentiation between drivers vs passengers.
Your data absolutely shows there is a problem, it just doesn’t show that the problem is the lack of an “anatomically correct female crash test dummy”.
9point6@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I don’t think whether they’re driving or not is a meaningful distinction at this level, people should be expected to sit in any of the seats of a car, so I’m making the fairly safe assumption they put dummies in various different seating arrangements.
The stats apparently originate from the US government, so it’s going to be a pretty big sample size that should average out any differences in seating position.
I can’t seem to see any conclusive after stats as the product was only introduced to the market a couple of years ago, I guess manufacturers need to buy these and then use them in their in progress designs. Cars on the market that have used these dummies during design are probably only new designs sold in the past year or so.
I can’t seem to find it with a quick search, but I vaguely remember reading about this when it was new a couple of years ago, and there’s a correlation with male safety improving with advances in the crash test process that aren’t reflected equivalently with women’s safety. But maybe take that with a pinch of salt unless you can actually find the source
ByteJunk@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
But if the fatality rate for women in the front passenger seat, for example, is the same as for men in that same seat, that’s were probably having an “anatomically correct female crash test dummy” can be very helpful in understanding why these crashes are killing more women than men.
SomethingBlack@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The source doesn’t use data from crash test dummies but from real life crashes. So we can’t take seating arrangements for granted if it could meaningfully effect the numbers.
The sample size is irrelevant if cultural factors exist that could skew the results. Cultural factors like men are more commonly taxi/Uber/bus drivers, men are more likely to drive with their partner as a passenger than the inverse, etc.
That’s a fair point, I don’t expect there would be enough data for anything conclusive.
That would be an interesting read. I’ll have a look for it.
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
This is the only reasoning provided in that entire article