Horrific Animal Crash Test Study Raises Concerns With Major Carmaker

Ford Motor Company has been accused of using animals as stand-ins for humans in crash tests.

According to an investigation by PETA, the automaker funded a crash test that used the bodies of at least 27 pigs. The experiments, “Side Impact Assessment and Comparison of Appropriate Size and Age Equivalent Porcine Surrogates to Scaled Human Side Impact Response Biofidelity Corridors,” took place at Wayne State University, where researchers used the pigs to gauge the effect of side impacts on their bodies.

As Newsweek reports, the study shows the bodies of the pigs, killed just prior to being tested, suspended by wires attached to the spine. A metal pendulum covered with sensors was then slammed into the pigs to simulate and measure the high impact of an automobile collision.

The world’s automobile manufacturers have largely moved away from using animals in crash testing, as non-animal research methods using crash test dummies or more accurate human cadavers are readily available.

As the Detroit Free Press reports, Ford assured the world in 2009 that it “does not directly conduct or fund development of products that involve live animal testing, and is unaware of directing any such testing in the past three decades.”

These tests show otherwise, while a Ford has yet to to confirm or deny whether the company is currently conducting or funding other animal tests.

Scientific studies show that given the differences in anatomy between a a pig and a human, any data obtained from these horrific animal experiments won’t be relevant to human car-crash victims.

It has been decades since any other U.S. carmaker has used animals for crash testing, let alone in horrific situations like this. PETA previously mounted a campaign against General Motors in the 1990s, after discovering the carmaker had been “smashing live animals into walls at high speeds as part of deadly and barbaric car-crash tests,” in facilities in China.

Crash test dummies and high-speed computers have since taken the place of animal test subjects. Today, there is simply no reason animals should be subject to pain and fear in any aspect of the automotive industry.

Help us ask Ford Motor Company to keep its promises and formally adopt a policy that prohibits funding, conducting, commissioning, and supporting crash tests using animals.

Click below to make a difference.