
When Eloise Walsh was in a horrific car accident in 2015, there was one thing her recovery team kept telling her.
They told her there was something beyond her control that could have prevented her extensive injuries – injuries which included crushed bones in her left foot, a broken nose, dislocated hips and broken ribs.
They told her that if she’d just had a different physical build, she might have escaped unscathed.
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“If you’d been a bit taller, this wouldn’t have happened,” the fireman who rescued Eloise told her.
Eloise explained to Claire Murphy, the host of Mamamia’s daily podcast The Quicky, that she had hit a light post at 70 km/h after passing out due to heat stroke on a sweltering 45 degree day.
Eloise was wearing a seat belt, but because she was sitting closer to her steering wheel than someone taller – for example, a man – her injuries were more severe.
It was an opinion echoed by her doctor.
“If you’d weighed, you know, 10 more kilos, if you were just a bit taller, none of this would have happened,” her doctor later explained.
This is because the seat belt – the device we’re told will hinder severe injuries in road accidents – is designed with the average male as the test height and weight.
In the 1960s, the crash test dummies used in testing vehicle collisions were based on the average male. This only sparked an alteration to crash test dummy design in 2011, following the findings of a study conducted by the University of Virginia’s Centre for Applied Biomechanics.