GM FYI Blog

By Jack Jensen, Engineering Group Manager
Vehicle Safety & Crashworthiness Lab

In today’s science-assisted world, we take a lot of things for granted. Our food is instant, our music is digital, our mail is electronic and our phones are wireless. Much of the technology we have become accustomed to was little more than science fiction only a few decades ago. And amid all the advanced gadgetry we use day in and day out is another kind of technology most of us never see or touch or experience in any tangible way. Technology that is so advanced it’s virtually transparent. I’m talking about the devices that help ensure all of the products we do interact with are safe.

I’m willing to bet that most people have never laid hands on a crash test dummy. They’ve never felt the weight, articulated the limbs, or watched the data come in from the wide array of sensors that tell us exactly what happens to a human body during a crash — without a human body having to endure it. And they’ve probably never given a thought to what is behind the airbag indicator light. They can trust that they are safe because a crash test dummy sat in a car just like theirs, wearing a safety belt just like the one they are wearing, and endured a variety of crashes — front, side and rear — over and over and over again. The truth is, drivers shouldn’t have to think about it. Because it’s up to those of us who test your car to give you the peace of mind that it’s safe, that it will get you where you need to go, and that it will protect you should the unthinkable happen.

If you’re curious about those bundles of metal, rubber, and foam that go through punishing crashes so we don’t have to, I’d love to share some history. In the early days, engineers only had human volunteers or cadavers donated to science to test automotive safety.

Clearly, it was necessary to develop crash test dummies.

The early automotive test dummies evolved from dummies developed for military use; to test parachutes and ejection seats. However, these first dummies were primitive, varied in size, and lacked a meaningful standard to test against. GM engineers knew they needed to develop a life-like automotive dummy that was consistent in construction and representative in proportion to a live human.

In 1971, GM engineers took the best aspects of the then-available dummies and combined them to create the Hybrid I. It was a long way from the current generation of test dummies, but Hybrid I was a big step toward standardizing crash test dummies for accurate testing results. In conjunction with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), GM shared this important development with the industry, including competitors. In the arena of safety, the value of such a development was too important to keep under wraps. In 1972, an upgraded Hybrid II dummy was introduced. These first two dummies were milestones in safety testing, but they still lacked the lifelike response needed to test the more complicated data that would bring vehicle safety to the next level.

Finally, in 1976, GM unveiled the third generation dummy, developed under the leadership of Dr. Harold J. (”Bud”) Mertz. The Hybrid III dummy was the most lifelike yet, able to measure much more precisely the sort of injuries a real person might sustain in a crash. GM not only released the Hybrid III drawings and technology to competitors and the government, but Dr. Mertz personally worked with the SAE and the International Organization for Standards (ISO) to make the Hybrid III the gold standard of crash test dummies. For decades, the Hybrid III has been recognized by governments around the world as the primary frontal impact restraint crash test.

The Motor Vehicle fatality rate has dropped about 90 percent since 1922, even with millions more vehicles on the road today. That’s largely due to the ongoing pursuit of higher levels of safety through engineering. Any of us who have ever had the harrowing experience of walking away from an automobile accident likely have a dummy to thank.