On Monday, we left off talking about human cadavers being the earliest form of crash test dummies. But when people began raising questions about its ethics, researchers needed to find another solution.
The next logical step was to use real live humans. Of course, these were volunteers who participated in the studies. The most popular of these volunteers was Colonel John Paul Stapp of the United States Air Force. He was most known for propelling himself more than 1000 km/hour on a rocket sled. He then stopped in 1.4 seconds. Researchers studied every movement along the way. A professor at Wayne State University – Lawrence Patrick – also volunteered for a similar study. He had more than 400 rocket sled rides at high speeds and rapid decelerations to test the effects on the human body.
Unfortunately, human subjects simply couldn’t endure some of the tests the automotive companies needed to get accurate data. Crashing head first into a brick wall at 80 mph simply didn’t sound fun to anybody. That’s when researchers turned to animal testing. That was in the 1950s and surprisingly lasted until 1993. I won’t go into any details about that simply because that’s a bit sad.
Finally, the crash test dummy was created. That’s where we’ll pick up at on Friday.
Until then, why not visit a local Toyota dealer and see what types of safety features that the crash test dummies helped to develop. Where would we be without seatbelts, airbags and other safety features? There would probably be a lot fewer people in this world – that’s for sure!