I’m really happy to see that VT and USHJA association are going to test both normal body protectors and air vests and them combined. However, the dummy shown clearly does not have breasts. Since the amount of women who ride far outweighs the amount of men who ride it isn’t even funny, do dummies with breasts exist? Breasts have got to change how a chest and/or air vest work right?
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/ushja-announces-825k-campaign-to-test-safety-vests/
Thanks for the link.
I also wonder if they’ve thought about including a couple of other dimensions: what about side-impacts? A lot of riders (including myself) fall onto their sides and that may have a different result than the frontal and back impacts that they indicate in the diagram.
And what about riders of different weights? A rider who is 5’5" and weighs 110 may have a different outcome than a rider who’s 5’5" and weighs 150.
And children?
oh that brilliant.
omg that’s just horrid. I would simply perish
not to totally derail, but re the banana spider, i have been there. Hacking thru woods after a dressage session, I happened to notice something sitting on my shoulder. 1. Scream. 2. Throw hands into the air, leaving reins behind and wack around the shoulders, dressage whip in hand. 3. Grab tail of shirt and flap it while considering complete removal. Dressage whip now on ground.
My beast had been walking. Upon hearing the scream, he picked up a trot. Maybe 4 steps. Then decided it was not remotely clear what aids I was giving so he stopped like a rock.
As far as the VT study goes, when you design a study like that, you’ve got to start at the beginning and collect the baseline data. Testing on your basic crash dummy costs $X. Then you can add other factors that make it more complicated, e.g. crash dummies with boobs, dummies of different weights and sizes, side impacts. That costs $X + more money. I’m sure if VT was given lots more money, they would be happy to add the other variables. It’s coming up with the money that’s the hitch.
As far as banana spiders go, I once saw a Facebook meme that said something like “The only aerobic exercise I get is from walking into banana spider webs.”
ok but the high percentage of women in horses should leave the dummy with breasts to be the default, no? If 80% of the people have this one anatomical feature, seems like that should in fact be where you start, then you move to the 20% later. Or you prove that it doesn’t matter.
No. Using a “male” dummy allows you to collect the basic data. Every time you add another variable, it makes the data more complicated and the study more costly.
You want a dummy with breasts? OK. What size breasts? A cup? B cup? C cup? D cup? Does data collected on a dummy with B cups also apply to dummies with A cups or D cups?
How squishy should the breasts be? How much will they deform in a frontal impact? Does that matter?
Does the presence of breasts actually make a difference in vest performance? How will you know if you don’t know how the vest performs without boobs? If it does make a difference, does it matter what size the breasts are?
You have to start with the basic crash dummy to collect the baseline data. Only then can you add on the effects of other variables like breasts in all their diverse forms.
I believe the data needs to be collected systematically as is described above; the deeper problem (not unique to this study, many crash test dummy studies in general, or even broader questions) is that there is actually no good reason for the basic or default CTD to be “male.”
The addition of breasts adds a very important parameter in accident modeling. They change the center of mass/gravity and this the various load paths. It has been a long, and continuing, fight to recognize the differences between men and women in medical and engineering research. The physiology and biology are different between the sexes.
I agree that sex difference body forms should be considered in vest testing. As mentioned above the issue is what is the “standard” body form for women?
You will be fascinated that this question does not exist in a vacuum and there are many others who are focused on women in body armor. Please don’t dismiss this work because it is about ballistic armor. Please see how science and engineering are cognizant that breasts change a lot of the assumptions to be made in designing form and function.
https://www.dhs.gov/publication/ballistic-resistant-body-armor-women
yes, you stated much better than me. And we can also note that there are males who have breast tissue as well. While of course we can’t take into account every breast permutation, there could certainly be an acceptable difference that would at least show how it would change the effect of a vest.
As Rayers shows above, I was in the military and given a flak vest which had NO allowance for breasts so I had to have a much bigger size than I should have to give that room. Luckily I was never in need of that vest, but there’s no way it functioned the same on me (and this was in 2001/2002 so I believe some updates have been made)
I guess it just ticks me off in this the year of our lord 2023 that the default is no breasts, ESPECIALLY when you know the people using this will primarily have breasts in some shape or another.
Forgive the derailment:
In 1942, when my mother was in graduate school for home ec (just after finishing her chemistry degree), she couldn’t believe there was not some way to influence the design of kitchen appliances. She thought they should be made easier to clean and service at home, especially by the people who used them, women. Her professors told her that men depended on the work replacing impossible to clean parts and servicing appliances and that their jobs were more important. End of story.
Not saying this situation is identical. However, if my mother were still alive and reading about the prevalence of male test dummies used to test a tool primarily used by women, I’m pretty sure she’d shake her head and say, “Twas ever thus.”
Not directly related, but if anyone is interested there is a good book on gender bias in data- Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. It talks about things like the male crash dummies.
Came on this thread just to recommend this book. Equal parts great and horrifying/depressing read.
It also directly addresses the “women are too complicated” or “non-male dummies are too expensive” points re: designing studies.
Breasts again:
I remember thinking that as a nursing mother, the dearth of reliable information about the simplest accepted, yet utterly un-researched, dogma had to result from Criado-Perez’s observations of women’s near total invisibility in the academic medical field.
I’m wondering if Charles Owen has done tests with dummies that have breasts? They do market the Outlyne vest in a woman’s model (as well as a child’s model), and I wonder if they did the crash-testing to support any design changes specifically to fit women’s (and children’s) bodies?
I’ve looked on their website, and all of their fitting guides relate to helmet fitting.
they have to start somewhere - I think be glad anything is being done at all and support this study, likely they will do furthur studies if there is support
I think it’s possible to both be glad someone is starting the process, and at the same time address the underlying bias. Taking the crumbs we’re given quietly does nothing to generate progress, in any arena.
We can do better than taking crumbs.
All of us have vests, right? On a given day, we’ll all wear them, and fall off our horses and report back. 
A little levity!
But what if I’m a female on the itty bitty tittie committee? (Seriously though, sternum sticks out further than those useless things)
Where’s the crash dummies with colossal thighs and ass, I say??
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