Part of Americans’ everyday life involves a car in some way shape or form whether it is their own personal car, an Uber, or even a taxi. Imagine getting into that vehicle and not knowing what would happen if you got into an accident? Crash test dummies are the key to understanding what happens during a car crash and have impacted Americans’ more than most people think. The World Road Safety Global Status Report in 2015 through the World Health Organization, reported that around 1.25 million people every year die because of car related accidents, which equates to about every 25 seconds one person is killed. ¹ Just this statistic along means that something shows us that we have to take the time to improve the safety in vehicles.  The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 was an act that Congress passed to regulate the design and manufacture of automobiles and when it truly becomes a regulated industry. This act sparked a debate between some manufacturers about how to establish the credibility of devices such as the crash test dummies. ² In the 1930’s the automobile death toll was featured in a major piece of dramatic journalism , JC Furnas’ article “And Sudden Death”. ³ Prior to this, there was little testing to see what would happen to passengers within the cars and the automobile industry needed financial support to work on prevention projects. [enf_note] Ibid. [/efn_note] They needed to continue to work on better examples of what could show the injuries that occur. For example, the creation of the Thor advanced crash test dummy became part of the development. ⁴ In the years to come, there would be star rating systems in place. These ranks from one to five, with five being the highest safety rating and one being the lowest.These star ratings are required by federal law, and every year each new vehicle is tested for front, side, and rear impacts and given a star rating. ⁵

  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, each year all new vehicle models are tested using certain crash test dummies to measure front and side impacts of occupants within the vehicle. ⁷ The National Highway Safety Bureau insisted that a dummy named Alderson’s VIP -50 must be used to test restraint systems. It is required that they hit a wall head on at 30 miles an hour to see the damage that could possibly occur. ⁸

Crash test dummies are a extremely significant how the vehicles occupants will be injured in specific crashes and improving safety performance in all vehicles. ⁹ The crash dummy is used now as a substitute for humans in car collisions to help determine the severity of an accident. This makes it easier to test how humans will react in an on the road accident. ¹⁰ There are however, limits on how the crash test dummy can respond. Since that is the case, we try to study the specific types of injury that the dummies sustain and in recent studies, neck injuries seem to be the worst of them all. They can cause a wide range of disabilities to the occupant. Crash test dummies are now required to have similar structures to humans in terms of dimensions and even the way they distribute their mass. ¹¹ What makes it more challenging is to try and simultaneously create a similar biological response. For examples, how would knees react when it from the side, rear, or front? How would the neck move in that situation? It is essential that in all dummies that they simulate those biological responses to create a broader and better understanding. ¹²

Crash test dummies have served the automobile industry well and have given passengers a large idea of how accidents can injure them. Though in the future, there may be challenges that come with continuing to develop them better. The main challenge is how to create a structure that interacts with the software system. It has to allow models to be able to be developed and validated. ¹⁴ In 1996 it cost about $750,000 a crash test. ¹⁵ Though that is a lot of money, that funding is still being used today and has saved thousands of lives since we now know more about what happens during different tests. 30,000 people die each year in the US alone because of car crashes. ¹⁶ Continuing to fund and learn from these dummies, and create new models that give us better understanding are crucial to continuing to make an impact with crash test dummies. 

1. Tao Xu, Xiaoming Sheng, Tianyi Zhang, Huan Liu, Xiao Liang, and Ao Ding, “Development and Validation of Dummies and Human Models Used in Crash Test,” Applied Bionics and Biomechanics, vol. 2018, Article ID 3832850, 12 pages, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3832850.  
2. Bellis, Mary. 2019. “The History of Crash Test Dummies, Starting With Sierra Sam.” ThoughtCo. ThoughtCo. April 17, 2019. https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-crash-test-dummies-1992406.
3. Nader, Ralph. “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile.” American Journal of Public Health; Washington 101, no. 2 (February 2011): 254–56.
4. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Figure 2. Thor Alpha Components. Photograph. US Department of Transportation, Washington D.C. https://one.nhtsa.gov/Research/Biomechanics-&-Trauma/THOR-Advanced-Crash-Test-Dummy-(Alpha-Version) 
5. “Safety in Numbers.” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, September 2015. 1-3. Retrieved from  https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/dummy_milestones_812189.pdf
6. Benson, Caspar. An Airbag Deploying during a Crash Test. Photograph, Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/crash-test-dummy?       sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=crash%20test%20dummy.
7. “Safety in Numbers.”
8. Bellis, “The History of Crash Test Dummies, Starting With Sierra Sam.”
9. Tao Xu, Xiaoming Sheng, Tianyi Zhang, Huan Liu, Xiao Liang, and Ao Ding, “Development and Validation of Dummies and Human Models Used in Crash Test,”  
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. 
12. Ibid. 
13. Ibid. 
14. Deitz, Dan. 1996. “Crash Test Dummies Get Smarter.” Mechanical Engineering, 04, 130. https://umw.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/230165076?accountid=12299.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.