Have you ever thought: "where in the world do all the crash test dummies come from?" The answer is here in Erie Country. Humanetics, originally known as Alderson Research Laboratories, was founded in 1952 by Sam Alderson. The company soon won a contract to create an anthropomorphic dummy for testing air and spacecraft ejection seats, helmets and restraint systems. Until then, the standard test protocols used flour sacks and sandbags. Headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Humanetics has six locations across the U.S., and has offices in 11 other countries. Since 1991, Humanetics has been in Erie County, Ohio. Their Huron, Ohio branch is the sole manufacturer for the world-renowned crash test dummies. Only a quarter of what they manufacturer stays in the U.S., the rest ships all over the globe.
Mark Brown, the Product Marketing Manager for Humanetics stated, “Erie County has been able to give us a great workforce over the years. Our area is filled with smart, talented people.”
Throughout its history, and continuing today, Humanetics has been key to the development and manufacturing of a complete range of test dummies. These include side-impact, rear-impact, children, pedestrian models, and more—plus the Test device for Human Occupant Restraint, or THOR, the next generation in dummy biofidelity, instrumentation, repeatability, durability and user-friendliness.
When we look at the history of vehicle crash testing, women weren't in the driver’s seat of many motor vehicles. And they certainly weren’t flying many military aircraft. When test crash dummies were invented, they were made with the male body in mind. So, with the social norm of the male driver ingrained, automotive test dummies were engineered with mechanics and anthropometry of men. In fact, much of the data used to model these test dummies was collected from military surveys of enlistees, which of course at the time, were majority male.
