WASHINGTON, D.C. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Seatbelts save lives, but older kids are more at risk for injuries during an accident than younger children. Now, car makers are working to reduce that risk. A new child crash test dummy is being put to the test to help save more lives.
You need Flash Player 8 or higher to view video content with the ROO Flash Player.
Click here to download and install it.
Concerned parent Sylviane Hannon does her best to keep her kids safe.
"It’s a peace of mind for me at least to know that they’re okay, even if we get into a fender bender," Hannon told Ivanhoe.
When kids grow up and out of car seats and boosters, they wear adult seatbelts; but for kids from 4 to 8, those seat belts can ride up, causing harm.
"The lap belt would load the abdomen with high forces, causing severe internal organ injuries," Randa Radwan Samaha, Ph.D., an engineer at the George Washington University National Crash Analysis Center, told Ivanhoe.
Now, to help invent seatbelts that protect children against abdominal injuries, physicists at Ford have redesigned the traditional child-size crash test dummy and added a new real-life midsection.
"That’s one of the first things we set out to do, was mechanically develop an abdomen insert for the dummy that has the right properties to make it similar to a human," Steve Rouhana, Ph.D., a physicist at Ford Motor Company, told Ivanhoe.
The new abdomen is made of a squishy silicone material filled with sensors that measure how much the seatbelt pushes into the abdomen. The measurement helps researchers understand what happens to children's bellies during an accident.
"This will tell us for sure which region of the abdomen the belt penetrated into, and it will give us a measure of the risk of injury," Dr. Rouhana said. "We could never get that before."
How do you know if your child's safe in his or her seatbelt? Engineers say a good test is if a seatbelt rides up the child’s pelvis or neck, they should stay in a booster seat.
"My two youngest sons stayed in their booster seats until they were 11 years old each," Dr. Rouhana said.
Hopefully, the new test dummy technology will help keep kids safe at any age.
The American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Physical Society, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., and the Materials Research Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
When patients leave their beds to undergo therapy, they also leave behind an important safeguard: their bedside monitor. A new technology is making it possible for nurses to monitor their patients wirelessly.
A seatbelt can be a child's worst enemy in a car accident. Now, scientists are testing a new crash test dummy that could pave the way for safer seatbelts for kids.
Making counterfeit cash is a big business for criminals. Scientists are taking a bite out of their client base with new technologies aimed at making money unfakeable.
A classroom creation uses NASA satellite information to plot the path of hurricane destruction, enabling researchers to better prepare for the next storm.
