2023-09-04 20:08:34
“Women are more at risk of whiplash injuries than men,” says Swedish researcher Astrid Linder, creator of the first female crash test dummy, winner of the Women’s World Car of the Year WOW award.
Road safety researcher Astrid Linder works at VTI, the Swedish National Institute for Road and Transport Research. Linder has received the WOW (Woman of Worth) award from Mia Liström, one of the judges of the Women’s World Car of the Year in Sweden.
The prize was awarded for his work in developing a female doll. With this award, the Women’s World Car of the Year honors the work of professional women who have distinguished themselves in the automotive world.
Astrid Linder is also an Assistant Professor at Chalmers University, Sweden. Her work focuses on accident safety and biomechanics research, with special attention to the development of mannequins to assess risk in the event of an accident.
One of Astrid’s goals is to study crash protection for both men and women. Together with her VTI colleagues and Mats Svensson from Chalmers University, she has developed the first medium-sized female crash test dummy.
How did your journey in road safety begin?
I studied engineering physics at Chalmers during the 1990s and following graduation I looked for work and found a position as a PhD student at Chalmers that caught my interest.
The brief was to develop the world’s first crash test dummy for low-speed collisions, to assess protection in the event of injuries to the soft tissues of the neck, so-called whiplash injuries. At that time, there was no dummy or test to determine the most frequent type of collision that causes disabling injuries.
It was a big project in the 90s. Funding came from Vinnova (Swedish Innovation Agency), which was previously called KFB and was a collaboration of Volvo, Saab, Autoliv, Folksam and Chalmers.
The crash test dummy created was the size of an average man, as that is the model of the occupant we used as the driver in frontal and side impact tests.
After that I worked abroad, in Australia and England. I also have extensive experience working as a manager in the area of road safety.
How did the idea of creating a female bumper doll come regarding?
As part of my doctoral studies, I did a review of the literature and found that women were at higher risk of whiplash injuries than men. Then the next logical step for me was to work to design a model that would represent that part of the population, women.
Since we evaluated the protection once morest injuries with a model of the average man. Today, when testing new cars, we cannot assess to what extent the cars also protect the female part of the population.
The way the body is built does not differ between men and women when looking at the large features such as skeletal parts, organs and soft parts, except for the reproductive organs which are not essential for safety in the event of an accident.
Differences that are important to include in models to assess injury protection in a low-speed rear-end collision are things like upper body geometry, such as shoulder width and torso center of gravity, which are higher for men than for women.
Today there is no possibility of evaluating the protection of a new car for the entire adult population.
The safety assessment in the event of a collision is carried out using an average man (geometry, weight and height) as the driver. We also carry out tests with children’s models. To represent children we have infant pacifiers in many different sizes. Volvo has carried out tests with a pregnant model where it was studied how the fetus is protected.
However, the protection of women was not studied, since the model was not designed as an average woman. What motivates me are the injury statistics that lay the foundation for what needs to be developed and that make it possible to better identify innovations that provide the entire population with the best protection. The work has been going on for more than 20 years.
What setbacks have you encountered over the years?
– The biggest challenges and setbacks over the years have been finding funding for research. My goal is for future crash tests to be conducted with dummies/tools that inclusively represent both women and men so that we can identify in testing the cars that provide the entire population with the best protection in the event of an accident.
But getting there requires more work. In the regulations for the homologation tests used in Europe, UNECE, it is clearly established that what is required for the technical tests is that a model of an average man must be used. And as long as the regulations say so, the change will not come from the demands of society.
Companies follow what must be followed, nothing more can be demanded. To get ahead you need cooperation, knowledge and will, among other things.
– It matters how we vote and what we get involved in, as it affects how regulations are developed. In terms of how difficult something is, developing a covid vaccine is incredibly much more difficult than developing an average female model for crash testing and the vaccine development was done successfully in a short period of time. A lot has to do with what we decide to do.
Back in 2012, together with Volvo, Chalmers and European partners, we created a mathematical crash test model of an average woman in order to be able to perform virtual tests with male and female models.
After this, it was widely believed that it was too difficult and expensive to develop a crash test dummy that would represent the female part of the population. We managed to get EU funding for the recently completed project in which we designed a mathematical and physical model of an average woman and man.
What is a typical working day like for you?
-For almost 14 years I have been a manager, which has meant all the work that management requires. I don’t have that role today, but I am a professor and at VTI I do a lot of research work, where I also chair meetings, manage project funding applications with various partners and present research results around the world.
After the BBC news channel did an article on the female shock doll, I still have some contact with the press and journalists, which is encouraging. I also read and write a lot, which also means reviewing conference papers and journals.
You like driving?
I really like driving, I drive a Saab 9-5 with a manual gearbox. I really enjoy that car, it offers a lot of driving pleasure with excellent handling, I like the way it responds to driving and that is important to me. I haven’t found a good substitute yet.
There are very good support systems in modern cars, but there is nothing that has appealed to me financially. I got my driving license in Stockholm at the age of 18 and since then I have always loved driving. But I also like to go by train and bus and I also like to ride a bicycle.
How does it feel to receive this award?
– I feel very honored and happy that the projects are receiving attention and recognition. And together we can make a difference. In car manufacturers there is no single person making a car, making a car requires collective work and interaction with many talented people and other companies.
The same applies to developing a better security assessment.
How are your visions of the future?
– My vision for the future is that we improve road safety together and that in 2030 we can evaluate protection in the event of an accident for both women and men inclusive.
The WOW recognizes the late Sue Baker as one of the founding judges of the Women’s World Car of the Year. We greatly appreciated her insights, her wisdom, and her knowledge during her tenure on our jury.
She was perhaps best known for her work as a presenter on the BBC show Top Gear, appearing in over 100 episodes. She also contributed to a wide range of publications and media and was the first woman to chair the UK Motoring Writers Guild. She died in November 2022.
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