The history of the crash test dummy

As more people got behind the wheel, however, the chances of road accidents got higher and higher.

It took a lot of trial and error to figure out how human bodies reacted to the impact of car crashes, and to study the reactions, researchers needed dummies. Read on for a history of the crash-test dummy.

It would’ve been great if automobile safety came before the accidents it prevented, but that’s not the case. On 31 August 1869, the first steam-powered automobile accident was recorded. (That’s 17 years before the first gasoline-powered automobile was invented.) It’d still be about 100 years before research and testing was actively conducted.

As more and more cars took to the roads, and consequent fatalities were recorded, automotive designers started to focus more seriously on safety.

Stop: dummy time. Researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit had been studying crash effects on human bodies using the cadavers of people who’d died of natural causes – but there were some pretty obvious moral and ethical issues associated with testing real bodies. Around this time, Colonel John Paul Stapp, an American Air Force flight surgeon, was studying aircraft ejection seats and realised more fighter pilots were dying in car crashes than in planes. He tested variables like seatbelts and speeds, but he needed a dummy that could withstand continued testing. Sierra Engineering Co. came through with a six-foot-tall dummy built from steel and rubber. They named him Sierra Sam. He was a game-changer.

Thanks to Sierra Sam, Colonel Stapp made important car-safety recommendations, including dashboards that cushioned on impact, shock-absorbing bumpers and safety locks that kept doors from flying open in crashes.

The first collapsible steering wheel column was invented by Bela Bareny, a Mercedes-Benz engineer. This was a big deal: impalement by the rigid steering wheel column was a common result of crashes during early tests. The safer, collapsible column was first introduced in a 1965 Chevrolet.

The same year, we were introduced to the first-ever dummy designed specifically for the automotive industry. Designed by an engineer named Samuel Alderson, the dummy was named ‘VIP’ and reflected the acceleration and weight properties of the average man. (It would take some time for dummies to mimic the size of women, children and adults whose heights and weights weren’t classed as “average”.)

Not to be outdone, those OG inventors at Sierra Engineering created Sierra Stan. Engineers at General Motors weren’t keen on Stan or the VIP, so they combined the best features of both dummies, stuck some yellow and black stickers on their model, and called it the Hybrid I. It was the first thing to resemble the crash-test dummies we’re now familiar with.

By 1972, GM had created the Hybrid II, a crash-test dummy that met more modern standards, and one they shared with other engineers. They understood that vehicle safety wasn’t something only one manufacturer could care about!

GM continued innovating and started work on a new version of the Hybrid, one that would reflect variables such as the way people sat in cars and positioned their eyes while driving. They even added internal components, like rib cages, to better understand how our bodies react on impact. The Hybrid III remains the most widespread dummy in use today, and his ‘family’ reflects different ages and body types.

Crash-test dummies became personified with the “Vince and Larry” commercials, where two dummies taught Americans about the risks of not buckling their seatbelts. Different versions of these ads ran in the US between 1985 and 1991. You might remember Toyota running similar ads here in Australia, but with dummy families!

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