In a world obsessed with photoshopping and size zero models, it might seem like a bold move for a firm to throw its weight behind fat models. But that’s exactly what Michigan-based firm Humanetics did last year – and for good reason. Its fat models might just save your life.

Car safety has probably been a concern ever since 1869, when woman Mary Ward was thrown from the passenger seat of a steam-powered vehicle that misjudged a sharp corner near her home in Parsonstown, Ireland. Ward died instantly, according to local reports – giving her the dubious honour of being the first automobile fatality.

By the 1930s, researchers had begun to investigate the problem. In the very early days of crash testing, cadavers were use – along with some brave, or foolhardy, live volunteers. Humanetics began replacing real bodies with crash test dummies in the 1960s in an effort to standardise tests.

Growing waistlines



Those early dummies weighed in at 170lb (77kg), a figure deliberately chosen to represent the average American male – 170lb was the median weight for adult men in the country at the time. Since then the dummy has been joined by a family, including a mother and children. There are even crash test dummy dogs (see below). But in US crash tests, the driver’s seat is always occupied by the average male.