Crash researcher no dummy
The creator of the first female crash-test dummy has been honoured for her work by the Women's World Car of the Year awards.
Swedish researcher Astrid Linder has received the WOW (Woman of Worth) gong, which recognises the work of professional women who distinguish themselves in the automotive world.
The road safety researcher works at VTI, the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute. She is also an assistant professor at Chalmers University, Sweden, where her work focuses on research in crash safety and biomechanics.
She and her research colleagues developed the female dummy after her doctoral studies found women were at higher risk of sustaining whiplash injuries than men.
At present, she says, it is not known if cars protect men and women equally.
European regulations stipulate only dummies representing an average male should be used in crash tests.
“It became a logical next step for me to work to design a model that represents that part of the population, the women,” Linder says.
“Since we evaluate the protection against injuries with a model of an average man, we cannot today, in testing new cars, assess how well cars also protect the female part of the population.”
One of her goals is to have crash protection studied for men and women.
“How the body is constructed does not differ between men and women when you look at the big features such as skeletal parts, organs and soft parts except the reproductive organs which are not essential in crash safety.
“Differences that are important to include in models for evaluating protection against injuries in a low-speed rear-end collision are things like upper body geometry, such as shoulder width and centre of gravity of the torso, which are higher for men than women.
“Today there is no possibility of assessing the protection of a new car for the entire adult population.”
Linder says she feels honoured and happy that her projects are receiving attention and appreciation. She’s hopeful that by 2030 crash protection can be evaluated for both women and men inclusively.
Women’s World Car of the Year is the only car awards group in the world comprised exclusively of women motoring journalists and was created by New Zealander Sandy Myhre in 2009.
