Passenger cars have only been around for about 100 years, but humans have evolved over centuries. And while our bodies slowly change over time to adapt to our environments—facial hair, for example, served as sunscreen(Opens in a new window) long before it became a hipster fashion statement —we’re simply not anatomically prepared to survive car collisions.

“People can survive running at full pace into a wall,” said Joe Calafiore, chief executive officer of the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) for the Australian state of Victoria. “But when you’re talking about collisions involving vehicles, the speeds are faster, the forces are greater, and the chances of survival are much slimmer.”

“The truth is that cars have evolved a lot faster than we have,” said David Logan, a crash investigator at Monash University Accident Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia. “In the modern world, we’re subjecting our bodies to much higher speeds and the body just doesn’t have the physiology to absorb the energy when things go wrong.”

“The dangers at even low speeds such as 25 to 35 kilometers per hour [15 to 20 mph] is quite great,” added Christian Kenfield, a trauma surgeon at Royal Melbourne Hospital.

To demonstrate just how vulnerable humans are to car crashes and how much more evolved we would have to be to remain safe in vehicle collisions, Kenfield and Logan worked with TAC to create “Graham,”(Opens in a new window) an interactive lifelike sculpture.

The Making of Graham
Kenfield and Logan collaborated with Melbourne sculptor Patricia Piccinini to develop Graham. And while Graham is recognizable as a human, the most vulnerable areas of his body have been fortified.

“The most significant part of the body for injury is the head,” said Logan in a video about the project.

“As the head stops, the brain actually keeps moving forwards, smashing against the front part of the skull, and then bouncing backwards and getting an injury on the back of the head as well.” Piccinini pointed out that “Graham’s brain is the same as yours, but his skull is bigger with more fluid and more ligaments to support the brain when a collision occurs.”

The Meet Graham(Opens in a new window) website notes that “the ribs are one of the most effective protective measures for our organs. Think of them as the first line of defense in a collision impact.” That’s why Graham’s chest “is large and barrel-like to withstand greater impacts” and his ribs are reinforced. “Sacks that do a similar job to that of an airbag have been placed between each of Graham’s ribs” to absorb force and provide an extra layer of protection for the vital organs.

Graham is on display until August 8 at the State Library of Victoria as part of an installation, and then hits the road for on tour throughout the state. Museum-goers will be able to use Google Tango, an immersive augmented reality technology, to look beneath Graham’s skin to “better understand how his unique features would work to cushion him from serious injury in a crash.”

TAC also noted that a “school curriculum has also been developed to enhance the learning experience for students visiting Graham in person or online.” Maybe you’re old enough to remember the gruesome car-crash films(Opens in a new window) they used to show in high school driver’s ed classes to scare teens, and you’ve probably seen the heartbreaking PSAs(Opens in a new window) about vehicle collisions due to texting while driving.

While Graham is designed to highlight “the changes we need to make to protect ourselves from our own mistakes on the road” and appears docile, he is bound to give some school kids nightmares. “It’s sad that we need to think about changing our body just so that we can survive a motor vehicle crash,” Kenfield said.

Fortunately, driver-assistance systems that will ultimately lead to self-driving cars are progressing much faster than the human body. And we’ll never have to look like Graham.