[treis]

Dummies don't take muscles or weight distribution into account. They're metal skeletons with rubber bodies over them.

This is one of those discrimination situations where the truth is actually the exact opposite of what is reported. The dummies tested are 4'11 95 pounds and 5'9" 171 pounds. If the extremes pass then it's likely everyone in between is fine. The people who aren't covered are those above 5'9" or 171 pounds which skews heavily male.

[watwut]

The dummy in video seems to be way closer to woman then just size. For example, it has breasts. Those matter for seat belt position. So yeah, it seems that dummy is more then just smaller.

But honestly, dont see issue. Men are loosing nothing in this. Male dummies will continue to be used too.

[Beltalowda]

> But honestly, dont see issue. Men are loosing nothing in this. Male dummies will continue to be used too.

You're right of course, but I think the deeper issue is that crash dummies and tests are designed just for the "average" and that many people fall outside of this "average". As a 2 metre tall bloke I've sat in many cars where the head rest just doesn't raise high enough for example, which always struck me as a fairly serious but also easily fixable shortcoming.

So the thing is that the issue of female crash dummies is a special case of the wider "crash tests should represent a wide range of people". Of course women of various shapes and sizes should be included in that, but also men of various shapes and sizes. By focusing so strongly on only specific groups (women in this case), I think sometimes these larger issues get kind of lost, even though the specific focus isn't really a bad thing in itself. e.g. stuff like "well, we included women now, which is what you wanted, so job done!" ... well, no...

[magicalist]

> By focusing so strongly on only specific groups (women in this case), I think sometimes these larger issues get kind of lost, even though the specific focus isn't really a bad thing in itself

You can suggest testing a wider distribution of crash dummy types without also inventing a scenario in which this article somehow prevents that from happening.

[klipt]

It's funny that on average women already live 5 years longer than men, but every "gender equity" initiative seems more interested in increasing that gap than decreasing it.

[watwut]

There are actually people working on various causes of that - attempts to lower incarceration rates, initiatives for safety practices in work help men more then women. Initiatives against smoking and alcoholism make male lifespan larger. Less guns in society would actually lead to less men dead.

One problem is that tackling easy causes of male deaths is met with complains about making men softer or feminizing them.

[klipt]

You're kind of reinforcing my point that while there are things that incidentally help men, none of that is done in the name of "gender equity".

For example you mention incarceration and studies show a "sentencing gap" where if a man and woman commit exactly the same crime, the man will on average receive a longer sentence. But there is no call to reduce incarceration for men specifically. There are some calls to reduce incarceration for everyone. There are also bizarrely some calls to reduce it for women specifically in the name of "gender equity" (even though the "sentencing gap" already privileges women).

Basically it's politically incorrect to specifically help men unless you wrap it up in language about how it actually helps the people who matter, i.e. women and children.

[mahkeiro]

There is one class of human being who are really at the bottom, and it's not women (or even poor women) but poor men. They die early, are more victims of violence, commit suicide more often, die at work an order of magnitude over women, have greater chance to be homeless, greater chance to have disabilities, have less partners etc etc. But let's be frank no one care about them, even in Europe.

[Beltalowda]

These kind of things aren't binary; some groups, on average, have it better in one area, and worse in another. But I don't think that should really come in to play when we're talking about one specific area (car crashing, in this case).

The world is complex, and when dealing with groups of people even more so.

[MichaelCollins]

The dummy's breasts don't seem to move in the video despite the impacts, I think they're probably made out of steel, or a very stiff rubber. I doubt they accurately simulate real breasts, I think they're on the dummy to convey femaleness.

[watwut]

They don't need to move much. The issue I noticed is that when my breasts grew, some safety belts went through throat (previously did not).

They push the belt to the side.

[MichaelCollins]

In a collision that rends a metal car frame, I think all flesh would move. Crash test dummies don't simulate this aspect of collisions.

[adamweld]

The existing NHTSA female dummies have breasts as well. See:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsas-crash-test-dummies

Presumably the difference here is around weight distribution and other limb length and size proportions. Still I think "First Female Crash Dummy" is a stretch.

[NegativeLatency]

It’s entirely possible this will make cars safer for everyone

[treis]

As someone 4 inches taller and uh... let's go with significantly heavier than 171 pounds I feel like I'm losing. I certainly wonder what would happen in a crash when I'm riding with my knees jammed against the dashboard. And weight is obviously important and it's rather concerning that I'm stressing the safety system past what it was tested against.