Don’t You Wanna Be a Dummy?

Not meaning stupid, a model or replica, pacifier, or anything else Urban Dictionary may come up with. I’m talking about crash test dummies. Because if you’re a woman, apparently we aren’t considered as one yet.

@nytopinion

In the U.S., women are more likely to be injured and die in a car crash than men. Why? After the filmmaker Eve Van Dyke’s own crash, she dug through the half-century history of auto safety to find out, and uncovered a disturbing reality: Cars were never designed to protect women’s bodies. | 🎥 Eve Van Dyke #nytopinion

♬ original sound – New York Times Opinion – New York Times Opinion

While on a scrolling spree on TikTok the other night, the video above appeared and proceeded to send me on a deep dive into safety in the automotive industry. Which by the way, this doesn’t help you fall asleep! Anyways, I took one for the team and have found some interesting facts for you to dig into:

1. UVA’s Center for Applied Biomechanics found that “Belted female auto occupants have 73% greater odds of being seriously injured in frontal car crashes compared to belted males”
2. They also said “Vehicle occupants age 66 and older continue to be particularly susceptible to thoracic injury, likely resulting from increased fragility of the ribcage with advanced age.”
3. “Female drivers and right front passengers are approximately 17% more likely to be killed in a car crash than a male occupant of the same age” says Keith Riley from Consumer Reports
4. Riley also stated that the current “industry standard female crash test dummy” is based off the smallest 5% of women from 1970
5. Women Drive Too wrote that there are ZERO requirements to have a female crash test dummy tested in the driver’s seat for the NCAP 5-star safety test

Scary right? 

So why hasn’t this been addressed? Oh! Thanks for asking, because through my late night research, I found that this problem HAS been addressed. Several times. By many different groups. With the most prominent being in a 2025 bipartisan Senate bill called the She DRIVES Act which states on its official website:

“Specifically, the bill requires the National Highway Traffic Safety Organization (NHTSA) adopt the most advanced female crash test dummy into the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), and to test it equally in the driver’s seat.”

 Oh? You don’t know what the most advanced female crash test dummy is? Don’t sweat it. Her name is THOR-05F which stands for: Test device for Human Occupant Restraint, 5th-percentile Female. (NOT Thor the Norse God.) With 150 sensors, THOR-05 offers the most accurate female anatomy on a dummy ever seen before allowing for better assessment of how our bodies are affected in car crashes. 

If the She DRIVES Act is passed, it would be the biggest step in gaining real, physical research into how women are affected in car crashes. We would finally start gaining the protection we deserve in the cars we own, and hopefully combat the countless preventable injuries that we suffer from.

Well what’s happening now?

Another great question! While we have made some great strides in these past couple of months, THOR-05F’s unveiling by the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and the current state of the bill have personally gotten me down. The current administration has framed our new representation as a way to push their anti-trans agenda down American’s throats, with Duffy saying “The Left doesn’t want to hear it, but the science is clear: there are only two sexes – male and female.” which takes away from the strides we are making for women and instead turns it into another opportunity to spout anti-trans rhetoric. And not to be the bearer of bad news, but the She DRIVES Act is STILL currently being revised in the Senate. (Here’s what it looks like in case you’re interested.)

However, there’s still a light at the end of the tunnel. Groups are still out there lobbying for us, articles are still being published calling for attention on this issue, and the government does seem to want this new dummy to become an industry standard! 

But while we wait for there to be some actual action taken, I recommend checking out the Women Drive Too advocacy group who are leading the charge behind getting the She DRIVES Act passed, following the Act as it makes its way through the Senate, and of course, buckling up and using safe driving practices every time you’re in a car.