Women are more at risk than men in car accidents.
Despite this, there is still no crash doll for them in the EU.
A committee of the EU Parliament now wants to change that.
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first published it
on April 5, 2023.
Berlin – When car manufacturers simulate accidents, they recreate many scenarios.
Impact from the front or from the side, with other cars or with a motorcycle and at different speeds - everything is tested.
Just inside, there is one in particular: the crash test dummy “Hybrid III 50th Male”, 1.75 meters tall and weighing 78 kilograms.
A standardized doll that fits the average man.
Or should correspond.
It was developed in the USA back in the 1970s.
The fact that drivers today may have different dimensions is not taken into account.
And that women could be at the wheel, not either.
They are injured as often as men, although they are less likely to cause accidents.
Only a smaller version of the male model is used for them: "HIII5F" is 1.52 meters tall and weighs 54 kilograms - which corresponds more to a 12- to 14-year-old girl than to a woman.
The Transport Committee of the European Parliament is therefore now campaigning for female crash test dummies.
In a statement on a report on women's road safety, he calls for crash testers to also use "female dummies" in the future.
"For too long cars, car seats and seat belts have been designed to fit the male body, with disastrous consequences for women involved in car accidents," says Green MEP Tilly Metz, who tabled the amendment.
"With our statement, we call on the Commission to develop new standards for crash test dummies."
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Debate about crash doll: The Federal Ministry of Transport sees no need for action
The Green member of the Bundestag, Swantje Michaelsen, also criticizes the current standards.
"The current testing practice is really problematic because it ignores the majority of all road users," she says.
As a rapporteur in the transport committee, she has already contacted the Federal Ministry of Transport, without success.
"Unfortunately, the response was: The ministry sees no need for action."
Michaelsen's male coalition colleagues are not helping her.
Jürgen Lenders (FDP) refers to the current accident prevention report and the state of scientific knowledge and can "currently see no need for action".
The SPD representative Mathias Stein warns against "reducing the debate about interior protection in motor vehicle accidents to the gender issue".
Women are "now only slightly less protected".
The most serious differences still exist in the area of whiplash injuries - "a problem that has to be solved technically".
Car Accident Statistics: Women injure themselves differently and more severely
According to the Federal Statistical Office, a total of 161,201 car occupants were injured in 2021, including 80,732 women.
Studies show that, compared to men, they are more likely than men to injure their pelvis, legs and spine.
Women are also more likely to be trapped in an accident vehicle and are twice as likely to suffer whiplash.
+
Man as a role model: Crash dolls are still based on the male physique - women are more at risk in the car.
© Ina Fassbender
Trauma surgeon Rebecca Sänger attributes this to anatomical differences.
"Women's muscles and ligaments have a smaller overall diameter, including in the cervical spine, which explains a lower ability to absorb energy released during rear-end collisions." Another problem: Because women, with their shorter legs on average, move closer to the dashboard, they crash They flex their knees and lower legs more easily, which can result in so-called “dashboard injuries”—fractures of the thigh, kneecap, dislocation of the femoral head, and damage to the spine.
Siegfried Brockmann is head of accident research at the German Insurance Association (GDV).
He checked the EUSKA database for Table.Media: According to this, the police accident data from eleven federal states show an eleven percent higher risk for women of being seriously injured in a
car
.
For minor injuries, their proportion is 44 percent higher than for men.
In addition, according to Brockmann, the GDV accident database and international research confirm "that female people actually suffer from a cervical spine distortion more often than average".
The doll could look like this: a team of researchers presents a female dummy
The Swedish engineer Astrid Linder, who works as research director at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, and her team recently presented "EVA".
The dummy has a female shape, is 1.62 meters tall and weighs 62 kilograms and has a different center of gravity because the pelvis and hips are shaped differently in women than in men.
Now all that's missing is demand.
"If society wants the model of an average woman, that's what they'll get," says Linder.
However, it doesn't seem to be that far yet.
One reason might be the EU-wide regulations of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
The UNECE has been working on the cross-border harmonization of technical standards since the late 1950s.
In its Regulations 94, 95 and 137, which deal with the safety of vehicle occupants, the "Hybrid III 50th Male" and variants derived from it are specified as the test standard for car manufacturers.
"It's like society is saying, 'No, we're not looking at that, we're only interested in the average man,'" Linder said.
(Carsten Huebner)
List of rubrics: © Christoph Schmidt / dpa
