On Thursday, the [US] Department of Transportation announced it has approved the design for the first advanced female crash-test dummy, named THOR-05F. The agency hopes the new dummy will help show how air bags, seat belts, and vehicle structures affect the female body in a crash to inform safer regulations and designs.
THOR-05F is based on the female body and was developed with the specific goal of frontal crash test applications. As such, it contains three times as many sensors than the Hybrid III model that’s currently in use, and is shaped, sized, and responds appropriately to how these bodies behave in the event of a crash. It represents a fifth-percentile female body, which is a fairly small person.
Advocates and regulators have demanded female crash-test dummies since 1980, according to Consumer Reports, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stuck one in a car. Even then, the female version of the Hybrid III dummy was just a smaller version of the male dummy with breasts attached—not an adequate representation of the female anatomy.