One reason male crash test dummies are not representative of female vehicle occupants in an accident is that seatbelts do not sit in the correct position on female bodies, because of their breasts. This has resulted in a system of safety testing, and by extension car design, that favours male safety over female safety. This, combined with the higher number of car accidents involving men, has created a data gap that masks the reality of vehicle safety for females.
This is the only reasoning provided in that entire article
SomethingBlack@lemmy.world 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days 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.