Crash test dummies get heavier as American body weights rise

[TexasTowelie]

It’s come to this: America’s crash-test dummies are getting older and fatter.

In an effort to more accurately reflect the U.S. car-driving population, at least one manufacturer is making crash-test dummies – the pretend people used to test automobile safety features – bigger and older.

“The typical patient today is overweight or obese – they’re the rule rather than the exception,” said Dr. Stewart Wang, director of the University of Michigan International Center for Automotive Medicine, in a statement. “You can’t talk about injuries without talking about the person.”

The new crash-test models include a 273-pound dummy, more than 100 pounds heavier than normal, as well as a prototype based on an overweight 70-year-old woman.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article130918899.html

[Skittles]

1. I weigh the same I did 40 years ago

yes INDEED

[underpants]

2. This is mmm mmm mmm mmm good

[Liberty Belle]

3. They need to also test with smaller dummies; airbags are brutal on small people.

I recently had a rib broken by one. When airbags first came out they found out with dummies that they could decapitate very small people and made them safer, though in my view still not safe enough.

[ProudLib72]

4. I don't think size matters

as much as you think with airbags. I got into a wreck and my head slammed into the airbag causing hearing loss for about two weeks. And I'm 6'2". I think airbags are kind of scary. They may save your life in certain situations, but for the milder wreck, they can be downright hazardous.

[Liberty Belle]

5. Sorry to hear about your injuries but glad you survived.

The earlier studies showed that people who were 5 feet or shorter had to sit too close to the steering wheel to be safe.

For me it's even worse; I have a shoulder injury so can't extend one arm far for very long without pain, so have to sit very close.

I actually drove an old car with no airbag for years after reading about the decapitations of short drivers that actually occurred, until they came out with safer airbags.

Hard to say in my more recent crash but I think I'd probably been killed without the airbag; a truck pulled out in front of me (he ran a stop as I was going downhill through an intersection). Just as my face started to touch the steering wheel the airbag went off and pushed me away from it. My car was a mangled wreck. I blacked out, lost my vision briefly and had my rib broken, but it could've been far worse.

I awoke to smell something burning, couldn't see and jumped out of the car. Thankfully it was just the smell of a burst airbag, and my vision came back in one eye the moment I stepped outside.

[ProudLib72]

6. It really wasn't that big of a crash

A person pulled out in front of me, and I ran into their car at about 15mph.

Your crash sounds really bad! This is when airbags save lives. Under your circumstances, having that airbag probably did save you, or at least prevent more serious damage.

I do think you are right about smaller people needing to sit closer to the wheel. I've been in two other accidents when airbags went off but didn't even touch me because I had the seat pushed back far. I worry about my wife who is only 4'11". She sits very close to the wheel. I don't know what it could do to her in a crash.