Women have carried the weight of sexism since the beginning of societies, and this weight grows tenfold when getting behind the steering wheel. Contrary to popular, dangerously stereotypical belief, women are not as bad drivers as the predominantly male car community makes them out to be.
Rather, women are driving cars designed solely for men – and it’s costing them their lives.
Before a car can hit the markets in the U.S., auto manufacturers are required to perform crash tests. Inside the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Vehicle Research Center, a car can run up to speeds of 65 km/h and go straight into a full-stop to test a car’s ability to absorb the impact.
A faceless human dummy is then placed in the car to simulate how the seatbelts, airbags, and other safety features can protect the people inside the crashing car.
“ Advanced features like automatic braking and different types of restraints including the airbags … are all modeled and based on the crash test dummy,” Christopher J. O’Connor, president and CEO of crash test dummy manufacturer Humanetics, said in an interview with TV program REV - The Global Auto and Mobility Show.
“It was based on the average male size with the idea that the male drove so he was in the driver’s seat,” he added.
While crash tests have expanded to putting the dummy in different seats and scaling it down to slightly match other bodies, O’Connor says “a lot more can be done” in designing car safety for women who still make up a majority of fatal injuries after a crash.
In a study by the Canadian Concussion Centre in 2024, women made up 69.1% of patients treated for sustained concussion involved in vehicle crashes despite being the minority in recorded cases of drunk and reckless driving.
Consequently, the Insurance Information Institute found that men were responsible for triple the number of fatal car accidents than women in 2017. When more men are crashing but less women are surviving, the numbers tell a story clear as day: cars are not designed with women in mind.
The New Car Assessment Program, NCAP, assigns a safety rating ranging from zero to five stars through performing various crash tests such as running the car into a solid wall at speeds going as high as 65 km/h.
Car safety standards can also vary by region with the Philippines falling under the ASEAN NCAP which rates vehicles in four categories: Safety Assist, Motorcyclist Safety, Adult Occupant Protection, and Child Occupant Protection.
“ When they go into a car dealership and they are asking for the NCAP 5-star cars with regard to crash test safety, they do not presume that it is meant only for one sex,” Susan Molinari, co-chair of the coalition Vehicle Equity Rules in Transportation (VERITY) Now, said in the same interview.
However, Molinari warned that safety for women are still unaccounted for in the many lists of NCAP evaluations until an anatomically correct female dummy is tested on the driver’s seat.
It had already been 40 years since regulators first called for a female crash test dummy, but only in 2022 did the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) address what the industry wouldn’t and built the world’s first true female crash test dummy – the Seat Evaluation Tool (SET) 50F.
Since cars have always been tested with male-oriented dummies, women’s bodies were impacted much differently than men’s were in crashes. The SET50F, however, promises a much safer future for women by representing the average female body beyond just height and weight.
Installed with sensors that detect speed, twisting movements, and crushing forces, crash test dummies can relay accurate data on how a collision can impact the human body. The SET50F carries 24 sensors in total, capturing additional information on injuries from the model’s distinctly narrower shoulders and wider hips.
“ To establish why females are impacted in these ways, we needed to create models that we could use in testing. The models now exist – it is just a matter of using them,” Professor Astrid Linder, road traffic safety expert at VTI, told Futurum Careers.
Numerous female dummies have been introduced over the years, but nothing has come close to matching the SET 50F’s accuracy. Yet, even four years after the model has been introduced, not a single government has required automakers to use one in crash tests.
“ No one has done the work and put in the effort at the regulatory level. Until society demands that this changes, things will stay the same,” Linder added.
