The transportation department has unveiled a first crash test dummy in the US modeled specifically on female anatomy, a move officials say is meant to close decades of safety gaps in vehicle testing.
Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, unveiled the THOR-05F, an advanced female design for a crash-test dummy with upgraded technical specifications. According to the transportation department, the dummy will be incorporated into federal vehicle crash testing once a final rule is published.
Although men make up the majority of annual car-crash victims, women are more likely to die in collisions of comparable severity. Women are also 73% more likely than men to sustain serious injuries in a crash, according to studies. In addition, they face a higher risk of specific trauma, including pelvis and liver injuries.
This just in: women are not just slightly smaller men. Difference in spine/height proportion, hip joint location, hip joint angle, fat distribution, center of mass, and breasts, just to name some things off the top of my head.
All those plastic Halloween skeletons are anatomically male, by the way. Really, nearly all depicted skeletons and skulls are male. The hip/pelvis is reliable by looking at whether the hip goes out more sideways than downwards and whether a baby skull would fit through the pelvic hole. The jawline is another indicator, with males having square jawlinse and females having pointed chins, as viewed from the front. I don’t know about you but when I first learned that, I was shocked at how feminine the sample skull looked. Yes, obviously, genetics play a role in jawline so it’s not a deadset sign, which is why the pelvis is used more consistently.
Can I get a bisexual person to confirm this?
A non-binary person would be a better source.
If it’s got boobs someone will eventually fuck it.
“And here we see the seatbelt sliding sideways to squash one boob and cut into the side of the female dummy’s neck because it’s not sufficiently adjustable. Meanwhile we notice that in order to be able to fully depress the brake pedal, the female dummy must position the seat so close to the steering column that the airbag will likely cause severe injury.”
They’ve been told these things by actual living women for decades but maybe they’ll find it harder to ignore the proof from the plastic dummy.
Yep. I’m a 5’5" woman with short legs and a long torso. In order to fully depress the clutch on my car, I have to have the seat nearly all the way forward. There are plenty of other signs that my car was built for a 6’ tall man, but that’s a biggie.
They would have to design and make two cars of each model, one for women and one for men. Where’s the profit in that when it’s easier to just ignore those issues.
Or just incorporate more modular designs. Steering columns are only made for the middle ~70% of drivers. Anyone outside of one standard deviation on the bell curve will struggle to get their steering column adjusted properly. It will either be too short, (meaning they have to reach too far for the steering wheel, and the airbag won’t fully cushion their impact), or too long, (meaning they’re cramped when driving, and dangerously close to the airbag when it deploys).
For instance, I’m tall. I have proportionally long legs. In order to be able to properly reach the pedals without my knees next to my ears, I need my car seat basically all the way back. But that means I’m constantly reaching for the steering wheel, which doesn’t extend far enough to be comfortable. It also means that if I hit something, my airbag basically won’t do anything. I may rub my face on it, but the vast majority of the stop is going to be handled by the seatbelt. Meaning my left shoulder and collarbone will take the brunt of the force instead of having it evenly distributed across my torso. It also means I’ll be more likely to develop whiplash, as my head won’t be sufficiently cushioned by the airbag until after it has already snapped almost all the way forward.
Volvo tried at one point.
The profit is in the pink tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_tax
You are using quotes, but what are you quoting? Because it’s not from the article that I can see.
Are you quoting yourself?I agree with the observation, but it’s kind of misleading to post it as a quote.
Hey Buffalox, coming in later and seeing all the downvotes, I’m sorry, you don’t deserve them. I was deliberately using phrasing that English or American people would recognize from certain kinds of public instruction short films or nature shows, and also in comic parodies of those films. Specifically, “And here we see…” as the opener. As a Dane, that might not be familiar to you. And I used quotation marks to indicate I was doing the (usually rather pompous) voice of that kind of narrator.
But I probably should have prefaced it.
Oddly, you’ll notice in my history my prefacing actual quotes with
From the article:
followed by the quote and then
From me:
for my comment.
Thanks, I must admit I find it strange why my post is so controversial?
It seems some people tend to forget that people come here from all over the world, despite the name of the server is lemmy.world.
They were using quotes to write in the voice of a hypothetical character. The tone signaled that to me pretty much immediately and I’d be a bit surprised to find any significant number of people took this as an actual quote.
In that case the normal thing to do is to lead with
Narrator: …Not to make a false quote.
Pretty moronic that I’m downvoted for pointing out it’s not actually a quote of the article.It doesn’t matter if it’s obvious to the majority, it’s the ones it’s NOT obvious to that count.
I hear you and basically agree*~. Tone can be tough to manage on either end.
I think the downvotes are also a tonal thing. People are taking you as being overly-critical, though Im pretty youre genuinely trying to be helpful. People, am I right?
Edit: had a half-thought or so more on the topic. Felt like sharing.
*~ We have tools that help us distinguish tone and meaning, but they are only helpful when people actually understand and use them appropriately. I am of the camp that language, syntax, and the like are all as mercurial as the creatures dealing in them. This means that definitions and use-cases will inevitably change over time, sometimes in ways that are useful and sometimes in ways that are not. I am the type inclined toward embracing this change as it simply seems too inevitable to deny, though I do sincerely agree that it adds fresh layers of potential confusion with each new iteration and off-shoot.
Im not trying to say anyone should give up on upholding literary standards, but I do feel strongly that this is a losing battle in almost all ways. Especially so after the advent of new media. Language and culture grow in their distinction and breadth at an almost equal rate, so having long-distance communication splinter culture so thoroughly has and will continue to alter how we use language at a similar pace. It has been said by some people more well informed than myself that we are not ready for the changes our modern innovations are ushering in, and with that thought I can not find any good reason to disagree.
The tone made it very obvious it was not a real quote.
Nothing else was needed.
Tone is not something that everyone can pick up equally. If you have an option to make it clearer, why are you people so determined that it mustn’t be changed?
That presumes people have read the article, and can see the difference in tone.
As a Dane there would be nothing wrong in having a similar tone in an article here. The same goes for many other countries.
Not everything is USA or Anglo-style body shame double standards, where saying boop makes things 21+.
And requires parental warnings more than showing people killing each other.
Could as easily have been a tongue in cheek comment.
I’m surprised they didn’t cancel the project for being woke.
I can guarantee there are current members of this administration who want to go watch a female anything get smashed in a car crash. It was probably their idea.
Stephen Miller. I am talking specifically about Stephen Miller. No need to dance around shit anymore.
Nah, they’ll misconstrue the data. They’ll likely use it to just say that women shouldn’t drive or something stupid like that.
“It’s too expensive to care for female driver regulations, so we’ll put a disclaimer that our vehicle is only designed for men and be absolved of all legal requirements”
Sure, but does she get equal pay?
One day maybe we can also consider pregnancy and obesity? But at least it’s one step in the right direction.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
1996: Automobile crash simulation with the first pregnant crash test dummy
I wonder how much safer being obese makes a car crash. All that extra cushioning.
I’m not sure that outweighs the extra mass, slowed reactions, or limited range of motion.
Knowing this administration, they’ll focus on reviving that old myth about cars causing uteruses to fall out and ban women from using them
Her name is Ellen Reid and she’s a fucking saint
“Decades” more like centuries but I digress
The first crash test dummy was made in 1949 and used by the Air Force. Automotive test dummies didn’t come until 1968. How is that “centuries”?
How long do you think that cars and crash test dummies exist?
The first car produced in small series was created in 1886. That’s not “centuries” ago. The first crash test dummy was developed in 1949, that’s not even one century ago.
