Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [29]
Considering his obvious personality shortcomings, Sid is a remarkably interesting bloke. (A bloke he definitely is, by the way – the shape of his pelvis confirms it.) He was born in 1990 but was conceived back in 1983 when, in a moment of far-sightedness, a working group of some subsection of the European Experimental Vehicles Committee managed to stay awake long enough to recognise the need for a dedicated dummy design to serve Europe's upcoming side-impact laws. Prior to our man there were two different French dummies, an English one and a number of donor organs available for spare-part surgery, such as an abdomen from Holland. Euro-Sid was created, Frankenstein-like, from the most promising bits of his numerous ancestors – well bred he is not – though these days most of the parts are made in Letchworth. The head, however, comes from America, which probably explains his fine cheekbones.
When I met Sid he was slumped on his trolley in the TRL storeroom, head lolling to one side, bits of junk lying in his lap, expression (what there is of it) fixed and uncomprehending. As in the trenches, his life consists of interminable stretches of inactivity interspersed with brief bursts of unimaginable danger. Interpreter Roberts relishes his description of Sid's role in a typical experimental side-impact test, describing the horror within earshot of the wretched mannequin. Actually, he doesn't have any ears.
Like the highlight in some sideshow of the Victorian grotesque, he is wheeled out before the expectant crowd and strapped roughly into the driving seat – he weighs the same as a fully grown male and is 'not helpful', says Roberts. He is then brought to 'life' with a short, sharp electric shock to his sensors, lights blaze, cameras roll, an ominous whirring sound swells as the crash barrier accelerates to 30mph, but Sid, with the iron-jawed dignity of a revolutionary before the firing squad, 'just stares straight ahead'. The impact is at its most punishing on his spring-loaded ribs and pelvis; his head often smashes against the window and a few seconds later Sid is slumped on the passenger seat in eerie silence, his agony downloaded to the grey box of electronics behind him.
He is not actually designed to sustain physical damage – his ribs, for example, flex beyond a point where ours would snap, sensors determining what real bones would do. He once lost a leg in an accident but generally gets off lightly compared with his more distant relatives in frontal impact testing, whose heads have been known to roll around on the floor. A placard around his neck proclaims: 'Lives left: 6/10'. Another six prangs and Sid will be ruthlessly pulled apart by his keepers for recalibration, to ensure his capacity for suffering has not been dulled. He is still young for a dummy; Roberts reckons there are years of alternating neglect and abuse left in him.
Sid's job is a crucial one and he performs it with Samaritan selflessness, absorbing our own pain by proxy and softening the blow if it should ever come to us. And yet I can't help but dislike him intensely. It's something to do with his impenetrable exterior, his spooky sub-humanity, his contemptible passivity; make a cruel joke about his missing forearms,