S. 161: She DRIVES Act

The She DRIVES Act runs on deadlines. Within 15 days of becoming law, the Transportation Department would have to update its crash-test rules to add two frontal dummies: a 50th-percentile male model and a 5th-percentile female model, both a newer design called THOR.

From there the clock tightens. A proposed rule for the female frontal dummy would be due in 60 days, its final rule in 120 days, and the male dummy's final rule in 180 days. Those rules would also have to set or update injury limits — covering the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, upper leg, and lower leg — based on real-world crash injuries.

The bill is explicit about seating: if a front seat is already crash-tested with a male dummy, it would have to be tested with a female occupant too. Side impacts follow a slower track — 18 months to add male and female side-impact dummies to the rules, 2 years to propose a rule, and 30 months to finalize it.

It also reaches the ratings shoppers actually see. The bill tells the department to update the New Car Assessment Program — the program behind those star ratings — to use the new dummies, ideally at the same time as the final crash-test rules, as long as that doesn't slow the rules down.

A year after enactment, the Transportation Secretary would owe Congress a report mapping out future testing devices, including ones still in research and more advanced models used abroad. If the department concludes no further updates are needed, it would have to spell out why.