Crash test for dummies
At Toyota Motorâ€™s safety technology media tour on Thursday, the most photogenic objects were not the cars; they were the crash-test dummies. Throughout the day at the Higashifuji Technical Center at the foot of Mount Fuji, Toyota showed us its latest safety features and research facilities, including a head-on collision between a Vitz hatchback and Toyotaâ€™s flagship Crown sedan, and a driving simulator that would make NASA proud.
Among the high-tech safety gadgets were the 21 crash-test dummies, lined up neatly in a row, with names like Bio RID II, SID-IIS and THOR. The dummies come in all sizes and shapes to simulate the impact on drivers and passengers from 6-month-old babies to pregnant women. (She comes with a mock uterus with built-in sensors.)
Even though the dummies donâ€™t particularly look impressive, with plastic limbs and wires hanging loose, they cost more than Toyotaâ€™s highest-end car model, averaging around 12 million yen ($150,000 U.S. dollars). The dearest of them, called â€śHybrid III AM50 High-Meka Dummyâ€ť has a price to match its hefty name: 200 million yen ($2.5 million), an official explained. Itâ€™s all part of Toyotaâ€™s aim to reduce road-related deaths and serious injuries. Back in the 80s, they used to use live pigs for safety tests, strapping the swines into cars with seatbelts, the official said, sotto voce. Todayâ€™s pigs have stricter animal rights laws â€“ and the crash-test dummies â€“ to thank.