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May 05, 2006

AGENCY WON’T EXPAND CRASH-TEST DUMMY SIZES

NHTSA has denied a petition by a former senior official of the agency requesting that it broaden its frontal crash test program to rate crash injury reduction performance of new cars for dummies representing three-year-old, six-year-old and ten-year-old children and 95th percentile adult males into the agency’s frontal crash test programs. James Hofferberth, former director of NHTSA’s Vehicle Research Test Center, sought the broadening on the basis that the likelihood and severity of injuries to vehicle occupants is strongly dependent on their size. He had noted that the agency’s frontal crash test standard specifies test requirements using only 50th percentile adult male dummies and 5th percentile adult female dummies. The agency denied the petition because of insufficient resources to undertake the research, development and implementation work it believed would be required.

Posted by MVHAP at May 5, 2006 06:51 PM