By: Derek Chang
Since the 1970s, dummies that have been made to represent the average male have been used to test the safety of new cars and new features. However, recently, a team of Swedish engineers made the first dummy representing the average female.
Technically, dummies, or in scientific terms, seat evaluation tools, had already been made to represent females. However, the key difference is that the already existing dummy is just a scaled-down version of the male one, and is roughly only the size of a girl.
The difference between the two-seat evaluation tools is very noticeable. The “scaled down” version is, according to bbc.com, “149 cm tall (4 ft 8 ins) and weighing 48 kg (7 st 5 lb)”, while the new dummy is, again according to bbc.com, “162 cm (5 ft 3 ins) tall and weighs 62 kg (9 st 7 lbs)”
With the fact that the U.S. is working to have men and women be treated equally, it certainly doesn’t make sense why there would be male test dummies but not female test dummies. Even Tjark Kreuzinger, who specializes in the field for Toyota in Europe, thought so. He even said, “You can see that this is a bias.”
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