Ford's Stephen Rouhana works with a specially equipped, down-sized dummy that helps researchers study stomach injuries kids can receive in crashes.
Ford Motor has redesigned the midsection of child-size crash-test dummies to help carmakers invent seat belts that could protect children against abdominal injuries.
Ford is hoping the new dummy will become the international standard for child crash dummies, helping researchers better understand the forces that act on children's bellies in an accident. Children ages 4 to 8, who typically no longer ride in booster seats, are 25 times more likely than younger children to sustain serious abdominal injuries.
Overall, fatality rates in the USA are on the decline, but abdominal injuries have become one of the most common for young children, and serious injuries can occur even in slow crashes.
The reason? Children don't have the same pelvic anatomy as adults, so their seat belts tend to ride up into their stomach area. And when children aren't sitting in booster seats, they often scoot forward to let their legs hang comfortably over the side of the seat, pushing the seat belt even higher on their stomach.
The easiest way to prevent these injuries today is to use a booster seat as long as possible, the safety experts say. But getting a child to stay in one once they reach school age can be difficult.
Just ask Stephen Rouhana, Ford's senior technical leader in passive safety research. He made his two children use booster seats until they were 11.
"It was hard, because the other kids would make fun of them," Rouhana said. "But they would say, 'My dad is in safety, so we have to. And you should be in one, too.' "
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