---
title: "How Uber Is Inadvertently Revolutionizing Crash Testing"
description: "The ripple effects of ride-sharing are about to fundamentally change safety standards."
date: "2016-05-29"
modified: "2016-05-29"
authors:
  - name: "Max Prince"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/max-prince"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/tech/3727/how-uber-is-inadvertently-revolutionizing-crash-testing"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "Lyft"
  - "NHTSA"
  - "ride sharing"
  - "safety"
  - "Uber"
---

# How Uber Is Inadvertently Revolutionizing Crash Testing

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/nhtsahed.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com\</em\>*

You can debate the merits of ride-hailing, but you can’t argue its effectiveness. Uber and Lyft have become poster children for Silicon Valley “disruptors,” managing to upended the decade’s old taxi establishment in just a few years. It’s a major paradigm shift, like Netflix’s trampling of Blockbuster. And just as film and television has been forced to react, rail-hailing is changing the automotive industry. Now, the government is stepping in to address a latent, but practical, consequence of Uber and Lyft’s prolific rise: More people sitting in the back seat of cars.

At present, National Highway Transit Administration crash testing only covers the driver and front passenger. Its rear-seat safety measures are twofold: (1.) Mandated side-curtain airbags, which occasionally extend to protect rear occupants, and (2.) Side-impact crash testing, some of which happens to overlap into the rear passenger compartment. That's it. A handful of automakers offer divorced, rear-seat-specific curtain airbags; it’s optional equipment and, typically, it ain’t cheap. But, starting in 2019, the NHTSA will begin [using crash test dummies in the back seat](<https://www.autonews.com/article/20160525/OEM11/160529938/crash-test-dummies-get-in-back-seat-to-make-uber-riders-safer>) of new vehicles. Since it was formed in 1970, this is the first time the agency has broached dedicated rear passenger crash testing.

![nhtsa2.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/nhtsa2.jpg>)
**Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg via Getty**

That's a big deal for automakers, who have been able to focus resources entirely in the front passenger compartment to achieve top marks. A NHTSA 5-Star Rating is especially crucial to brands like Honda and Chrysler, which sell family-oriented cars and minivans in volume. New rear-seat tests will mean adapting tech like seatbelt pre-tensioning to accommodate three or more additional passengers. It'll also mean big changes to engineering overall crash structures. Both propositions are hugely expensive.

The NHTSA’s rear-seat testing is part of a [larger set of new standards](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/1203/improved-crash-testing-brings-us-closer-to-self-driving-cars>), which includes semi-autonomous capabilities, set to take effect in 2019.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/themaxprince>)