When the Trump administration approved the design for a female crash test dummy, advocates who have pushed for better female representation in vehicle safety welcomed the news. The dummy’s development has been lengthy, and it is not yet being used in federal safety tests.
U.S. vehicle safety testing has long relied on crash test dummies based on a male body. Researchers and advocates say women are more likely to be injured in crashes than men, even after accounting for crash severity and vehicle size. Calls for an accurate female dummy date back decades; Consumer Reports traces them to 1980.
In the early 2000s regulators added a small “female” dummy to tests, but it was essentially a scaled-down male dummy with breasts added—an approach that fails to represent real anatomical differences. Around the same time, NHTSA began work with Humanetics to design a more accurate female dummy. That collaboration produced the THOR-05F: Test device for Human Occupant Restraint, 5th-percentile Female (a very small woman) and the first dummy based on female anatomy.
Chris O’Connor, CEO of Humanetics, notes key differences: “The pelvis for a female is more rounded and does not hold the seatbelt the same way.” He also cited differences in the neck and lower leg—areas linked to higher rates of leg injuries in women.
The design has been embraced by some overseas regulators, but in the U.S. it remained in limbo while NHTSA conducted more testing. Adding a new dummy is costly—the development plus individual units, which can exceed $1 million each, create significant expense.
Critics say the THOR-05F’s 5th-percentile size won’t represent most women and have urged broader approaches. Some safety groups advocate using computer simulations to model varied body sizes, while others argue that better real-world dummy data is needed to inform those models.
Publication of technical specifications is only one step. A final federal rule must be issued, and the dummy will then be considered for inclusion in safety tests; the tests themselves have not been rewritten. NHTSA says it is using the female dummy in research and that the released information lets the auto industry begin use. The federal New Car Assessment Program’s process to incorporate the new dummy is expected to start in 2027–2028.
Advocacy group Women Drive Too welcomed the move but cautioned it is insufficient alone, and they continue to press Congress to require that female dummies be used in real crash tests. After decades of work, adoption in actual federal safety testing remains a few years away.