Search Here

The expanding waistlines of drivers are recently highlighted in car crash experiments to be able to represent the growing number of obese drivers in the United States. Instead of using the regular dummies, a 273-pound person is created to simulate a car crash to raise awareness of the dangers and risks that come with obesity.

At present, 40% of the United States adult population are obese. This lead to an experiment wherein obese car crash test dummies, weighing 273 pounds are used instead of the normal 170-pound dummies, as reported by Mirror UK. Back in 1980, only 15% of the US population falls into the obese category, and most cars were designed with the 1980 standards. Now that obesity is becoming one of the most common health problems in the US, car manufacturers should be paying attention to this change in the standards when it comes to manufacturing cars and vehicles.

According to the recent car crash test involving obese dummies, fat drivers are most likely to die in a car crash, with a 78% probability compared to those drivers with normal weight. The study was conducted at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and the Institute of Transportation Studies. The experiment also reveals that the higher the BMI or Body Mass Index of a driver is, the more likely they will die in a car crash.

In other news, two luxury electric vehicles from Tesla and BMW failed in the latest crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, CBS News reports. Neither of the Tesla Model S and the BMW i3 managed to pass the five different crash tests to land on the "Top Safety Pick" of the insurance industry. However, both companies are already addressing the problem

The obese crash test dummy experiment aimed to give the automotive industry an idea of how they should be converting their design efforts into today's current standards to be able to provide safer automobiles for everyone.