When a woman gets behind the wheel of a vehicle today, she is protected by safety features — from seatbelts to airbags — that have largely been designed to protect the average man from about 50 years ago.
But female drivers in the United States are 73 percent more likely than a male driver to be severely injured in vehicle crashes, and they are 17 percent more likely to die, according to government data.
Those higher risks pushed the federal Transportation Department to approve a new female crash dummy, which was announced on Thursday. Known as the THOR-05F, it is “more durable, accurate and lifelike,” according to the government.
“Better understanding the unique ways in which women are impacted differently in crashes than men is essential to reducing traffic fatalities,” said Jonathan Morrison, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Once a final rule is adopted, this female model could replace what is known as the Hybrid III, which has been used for decades in the government’s vehicle crash test five-star ratings program.
The Hybrid III is based on the proportions of the average American man from the 1970s, which was about 5 feet 9 inches and 170 pounds.
Much of the safety disparity between men and women can be linked to “a vehicle’s design and technology,” according to a 2005 government report, though the fatality rate for women has been rapidly dropping in newer cars.
In 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration updated its rating system to include tests with female crash dummies, at about 4 feet 11 inches and 108 pounds, with a rubber jacket around the chest to represent breasts.
But most of those tests required the female dummy to be tested in the passenger seat or the back seat, not in the driver’s seat, even though licensed female drivers outnumber licensed male drivers by about three million.
Though the Transportation Department approved the specifications for the new dummy, its adoption in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration car safety tests or Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards is not assured.
The government could use the female model in its testing, and it would be available to manufacturers and to the automotive industry. Legislation introduced in Congress seeks to make its use compulsory.
“The Trump administration deserves enormous credit for this powerful development,” said Maria Weston Kuhn, the founder and president of the Drive Action Fund, which aims to make cars safer for women.
Ms. Kuhn, a student at New York University Law School, was seriously injured in a crash in 2019, when she was an undergraduate student. She and her mother were in the back seat, and both were hurt, but her father and brother, who were in the front seats and closest to the point of collision, were not.
She began lobbying Congress to pass a bill requiring federal regulators to use the female dummy and test it in the driver’s seat.
Each dummy costs about $1 million, and the Congressional Budget Office found that adding it would cost the entire automotive industry between $50 million to $60 million.
“The fight is far from over,” Ms. Kuhn said. “Now it’s time we hear from the car companies about how they are going to become part of the solution to protect women’s lives, not the obstacle in the road.”
While federal officials emphasized that the new female dummy comes with more than 150 sensors, and that it more accurately reflects the differences between men and women — including the shape of the neck, collarbone, pelvis and legs — it might not be quickly adopted.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit group funded by automobile insurers and insurance associations, said its research had found that the injury risk gap between men and women had closed significantly in recent years.
A spokesman for the group, Joe Young, attributed the improvements to better crumple zones, which absorb the force of a crash before it reaches the passenger compartment, and more advanced restraint systems.
“While we’re continuously evaluating new tools that become available, we have no plans to adjust the dummies used in our consumer ratings crash tests at the moment,” Mr. Young said.
He pointed to virtual crash testing as a promising solution to address the disparity in injury risk between men and women.
Virtual testing uses computer-generated human models with skeletons and muscles that can be tailored for different ages and sizes, representing the full anatomical diversity of the population.
But a government testing system without physical dummies is not here yet.
“It’s far past time to make these testing standards permanent, which will help save thousands of lives and make America’s roads safer for all drivers,” said Senator Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, who introduced the legislation that would require the most advanced testing devices available, including the new female crash-test dummy.
Adeel Hassan, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
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