She DRIVES is a Good Bill

We need to talk about Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s She DRIVES bill and why it’s a good bill, but first…

Go ahead. Make the obligatory “women driver” jokes. We both know you want to. I’ll wait.

*hums Jeopardy theme*

Okay, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, can we be serious about the She DRIVES bill?

In short, the She DRIVES bill mandates that vehicle safety testing 1) use updated crash test dummies that collect better data, especially from the legs and 2) use 50% dummies that reflect anatomical differences in females.

That’s pretty much it, as far as I can tell.

There’s a lot more, but that’s the basic intent of the bill. Of course, those two things are buried in the legalese along with such lyrical prose as “The final decision notice required under clause (i) shall be promulgated concurrently with the issuance of the final rule required under subparagraph (A) (i) if the Secretary determines that promulgating the final decision notice concurrently with the final rule required under that subparagraph does not delay issuance of that final rule.” That’s on page 5, lines 11-20.

Yes, I read it, so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

Legalistic mumbo-jumbo and pettifoggery aside, updating crash test dummies is something that’s long overdue. Women are injured and die at significantly higher rates than men in frontal crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has known they needed to update their dummies for at least two decades (according to the General Accounting Office’s 2023 report on the matter) but has been dragging its feet.

The She DRIVES Act lights a Congressional fire under the Secretary of Transportation to get NHTSA to get with the program. Nothing more, nothing less.

Will better crash dummies lower overall vehicle crash morbidity and mortality? I have no idea. I’m not a safety (or any other kind of) engineer. Is it reasonable that it could? Yes, I think so, just based on what I know about the differences between males and females.

It’s also notable that the She DRIVES Act could have this positive benefit without a lot of extra expense and very little intrusion on the lives of everyday citizens—two things I’ll always be in favor of.

Senator Britt’s been on a roll lately, and the She DRIVES Act is just one example of that. I personally am particularly fond of the FOCA bill she’s co-sponsoring, that could potentially save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

So, kudos to Sen. Britt for the She DRIVES and FOCA bills. Let’s hope she can see both passed and signed by President Trump.

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