I will confess to being one of the people who has been critical of the job that Pete Buttigieg (“Pothole Pete”) has been doing as the country’s Secretary of Transportation under Joe Biden’s presidency. He has seemingly done almost nothing while the nation’s ports were clogged with ships waiting to unload cargo, train derailments became an almost daily feature, and planes were regularly experiencing near collisions. But I clearly was too quick to judge Mayor Pete because he has quietly been working on a bigger project that will finally deliver the type of changes we’ve been waiting for. This week, Buttigieg boldly stepped forward to finally end the ongoing tragedy of gender inequity among crash test dummies. What’s that you say? You weren’t aware of this crisis? Well… nobody was. But it appears that we were suffering from a lack of female crash test dummies. And Pothole Pete is going to address this problem no matter what it costs the taxpayers to do so. (Outkick)

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg found a new use for U.S. taxpayer dollars: female crash test dummies.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) praised Buttigieg for his efforts at a transportation committee hearing Thursday.

DeLauro calls the inclusion of female dummies “the start of the fight for gender inequity among vehicle safety and crash victims.”

I found myself nodding my head in agreement with Bobby Burack. We are not a serious nation at this point.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro praises Pete Buttigieg for the development of “female crash test dummies.”

"This will start to fight the gender inequity among vehicle safety and crash victims."

We are not a serious nation.
pic.twitter.com/VCiZvduU70

— Bobby Burack (@burackbobby_) April 20, 2023

Okay, then. Is there some sort of “glass ceiling” for women when it comes to “vehicle safety and crash victims” that I wasn’t aware of? Since it’s apparently my job to research topics like this so you don’t have to, I went and did some digging. I was rather shocked to find out that it’s true. According to multiple studies, women are 73% more likely to be seriously injured in a frontal car crash, nearly twice as likely to be trapped in the wreckage, and 17% more likely to be killed.

Why would that be? The primary factor seems to be a matter of weight and basic physics. On average, women weigh less than men. This means that during a sudden deceleration such as is experienced during a collision, women are catapulted forward more quickly, resulting in greater stress on the body when the seatbelt catches them. Also, women tend to be shorter than men and they move the driver’s seat further forward and closer to the steering wheel.

I suppose that sort of makes sense, though I’m far from an expert in this field. But not all women are lighter and shorter than all men. And the gender of the person driving any given vehicle versus the person in the passenger seat is essentially random. Isn’t this just a question of inequity based on size rather than gender?

But let’s extend the benefit of the doubt here and just assume that this is a serious issue. How is adding fake breasts and a wig to crash-test dummies going to do anything about the problem? Uh oh. I just realized we’re edging dangerously close to asking how the crash test dummies “identify.” The next headline following this one will obviously deal with the transphobic nature of the automobile safety testing industry. (I really shouldn’t be giving them ideas at this point.)

If the safety disparity is based on weight and height, couldn’t we just take the current crash test dummies and reduce their mass and height? Or would that be a case of excessive common sense in 2023? Perhaps it’s just inevitable given the clown show that we are all currently experiencing. In any event, surely there are bigger problems that Buttigieg could be occupying his time with, assuming he’s actually showing up for work these days and not on vacation or paternity leave.