Swedish researcher produces world’s first female crash test dummy

A researcher from Sweden has produced a crash test dummy specifically for women.

Anna Carlsson said that even though women are twice as likely as men to suffer whiplash injuries when being hit from behind in a collision, existing crash test dummies are based on the average male and are adapted for that purpose.

However, Carlsson has now produced a prototype for the first dummy in the world to represent an average female. To achieve this she tested women getting hit at very low speeds and acceleration to try and work out how a woman’s body moves when involved in a collision. The model, named EvaRID, was put through eight crash tests in regular car seats and, when compared to a male dummy, generally showed higher acceleration and quicker motion.

Carlsson says that, though suitable whiplash protection can reduce injuries generally, it is currently 30% more effective for men than women and therefore a suitable female dummy is needed to try and even up the statistics. She said the key to achieving greater safety was to lower the forward acceleration for both men and women during collisions and this could be done by manufacturing a seat that yields backwards in such an event and also by enabling the upholstery padding to absorb the energy, so the seat frame does not move.

Anna Carlsson’s female dummy formed part of ADSEAT, an EU funded project which aims to provide guidance on how to evaluate the performance of vehicle seat designs to try and reduce the incidence of whiplash associated disorders.