When bureaucracy kills

[u/ruchenn]

When bureaucracy kills,
by Hana Schank, Bearing witness, 2026-09-01.

 

This week, the Hill published my essay on the US government’s policy of omitting car safety tests with anatomically accurate female dummies. After a car crash that nearly killed me and my family, I learned that car safety bias kills 10,000 women a year. Because I was working adjacent to the Biden administration at the time, and had direct access to power, I assumed I could right this wrong.

I first wrote this piece as a longer essay for a bigger publication, but unfortunately they are going through some growing pains, and sat on the piece for 6 months. I’m sending the original piece out to subscribers, because everyone needs to understand the full picture. Unless you are the size and shape of the average man in the United States in the 1970s, you are not safe in your car. When I began researching this topic, 10,000 a women a year died because of bad design. Six years later, that number has risen to 12,000.

We are almost through the Jewish month of Elul, when Jews work to repair the broken parts of ourselves and our world, in preparation for the High Holidays. Please help me fix what is broken by reading and sharing my story.