The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing to update crash test dummies from the 1980s as Americans have gotten heavier.
“The U.S. population has changed substantially, most notably due to the large increase in body mass,” reads a Friday filing in the Federal Register.
As many as 2,000 people would participate in a nationwide push over the next three years to update crash test dummies, which are officially known as anthropomorphic test devices, by collecting data such as weight, height, and head breadth.
Researchers would whittle that group down to a few hundred who would participate in lab studies ...