Crash-test dummies are catching up with Americans, according to ABC News. The typically svelte dummies packed on about 100 pounds in order to more accurately reflect the country's growing waistlines and derrieres.
"Studies show that obese drivers are 78 percent more likely to die in a car crash," said Chris O'Connor, the CEO of Humanetics, the company which is making the new dummies, according to ABC News.
Typical crash-test dummies weighed 167 pounds and represented an individual with a body mass index in the healthy range. The new dummies Humanetics is creating will weigh 270 pounds with a BMI of 35, in the morbidly obese range, according to ABC News. Seat belts and air bags have been designed for thinner drivers and passengers, which is not what all Americans look like.
Seventy percent of Americans are either overweight or obese, according to the CDC.
"Typically you want someone in a very tight position with their rear against the back of the seat and the seat belt tight to the pelvis," O'Connor said, according to ABC News. "An obese person has more mass around midsection and a larger rear which pushes them out of position. They sit further forward and the belt does not grasp the pelvis as easily."
President of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Dr. Mark Reiter told ABC News that treating obese victims of car crashes can be complicated.
"It is harder to perform medical procedures like intubations of breathing tubes and insertion of chest tubes for collapsed lungs and they may have other chronic conditions that put them at increased risk," Reiter said.
Reiter also mentioned that transport boards and neck collars may not accommodate a larger patient's size, according to ABC News.
The chubbier dummies will debut in crash tests by the end of the year, O'Connor said, according to ABC News.
