At present, female crash test dummies are not used, despite the fact that there are prototypes available and that women suffer more from crash-related injuries. To fight this injustice, Sweden's Infrastructure Minister Tomas Eneroth has promised that his country will push for international demands on vehicle manufacturers to use female dummies as well.
"This is serious and not acceptable. Both women and men should have optimal protection," Infrastructure Minister Tomas Eneroth said, as quoted by the Sydsvenskan daily.
Chalmers University in Gothenburg has developed a prototype of a female crash dummy with proportions similar to an average woman. Studies have indicated that crash test results are different depending on whether there is a male or a female crash dummy in the front seat.
"You can talk about weight, length and other characteristics. However, when it comes to society's demands on vehicles, only men are represented," Astrid Linder, a research director at the Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), told Sydsvenskan. "It looks like this issue in the whole world has to be driven by politicians. One cannot expect an individual car company to drive this when society does not say it's required," she added.
"They believe however that they cover the entire population by using scaled-down crash dummies. They believe it corresponds to a woman," Carl Zeidlitz, traffic safety director at Motormännens Riksförbud, a Swedish an organization for motor vehicle-owners told Sydsvenskan.
Yvonne Wärnfeldt, investigator at the Swedish Transport Agency also lamented the lack of female crash dummies. However, as the Transport Agency can neither take a stand for the entire automobile industry, nor impose universal rules on this matter. To get the ball rolling, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) must become engaged in the problem, and Sweden intends to raise the issue at the negotiating table, she argued.
"We will look at the research available and see if the time is right to do anything," says Yvonne Wärnfeldt.
The European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP), the collaborative body for safety testing cars, uses several different crash test dummies today. An average male body is used, together with dummies that are five percent bigger and five percent smaller than the average. However, no female ones as such are used.
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Crash test dummies were introduced in the 1950s and have been constantly evolving. The most commonly used dummy is 1.77 centimeters long and weighs 76 kilograms, both significantly taller and heavier than an average woman. Additionally, anatomical differences in spine and muscle mass are considered to be among the reasons, why women suffer almost twice as many whiplash injuries, according to Motormännens Riksforbund.