According to WHO statistics, car crashes presently claim over 1.25 million lives a year around the world. If that’s not a number that’d inspire research, I don’t know what is. And that’s exactly what it did for the Australian government who’s pioneered a revolutionary new project that brings us face-to-face with the vulnerability of the frail human body in a car crash.
In collaboration with Melbourne sculptor Patricia Piccinini, leading trauma surgeon Christian Kenfield and road safety engineer David Logan, this project has created a model of a human body that could survive a car crash – Graham.
According to Distractify, Graham is equipped with everything the human form would need to make it through the trauma of a road accident.
He has no neck, meaning he can’t break it; a flat face padded with fat to protect his nose, eyes and ears. He also has thick skin and extra nipples between each rib to provide a cushion for his internal organs.
Graham was also given bizarre features that make him resilient to being hit by cars too, such as smaller, rabbit-like feet to help him jump over oncoming cars. His knees bend in all directions to prevent broken legs as well.
“The dangers of even low speeds such as 25, 30, 35 kilometres an hour is quite great. The most significant part of body for injury is the head. So as the head stops the brain actually keeps moving forward, smashing against the front part of the skull and then bouncing backwards and getting an injury on the back of the head as well.”
This team of experts got together to highlight the perils of disregarding road safety. Graham, who is currently on display at the State Library of Victoria, will soon also be touring the country to promote the cause.
“In the modern world we’re subjecting ourselves to much higher speeds, and the body just doesn’t have the physiology to absorb the energy when things go wrong.”
Watch the complete video about the making of Graham here:
Graham is an innovative way to bring the modern driver/motorist/pedestrian to face the severe frailty of human life and let’s just say, if you don’t look like him, you need to put that phone down, swear off drunk driving and watch out when you’re on the road.