American waistlines are expanding, and so are the crash test dummies being used to help make vehicles safer, according to Humanetics, the sole crash test dummy manufacturer.

Humanetics CEO Chris O'Connor said fatter dummy models were a response to the fact that obese drivers were almost 80 percent more likely to die from a vehicle crash.

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Previous crash test dummies were designed to mimic a 167-pound person with healthy body mass index. New dummy models are weighing in at 270 pounds, with a 35 BMI, which the Centers for Disease Control, and other health organizations, call morbidly obese.

The CDC said more than 70 percent of people in the U.S. were overweight or obese. That means  vehicle safety needs to account the increased weight of drivers.

Findings based on past crash test dummies have resulted in safety features including air bags and seat belts being constructed to fit the lower weights. But hat doesn't help heavier people survive serious impacts. Recent studies show that drivers considered somewhat obese were more than 20 percent more likely to die in a crash.

Ratchet that up to the morbidly obese and those people are more than 50 percent to die in a crash, according to researchers from the University of Buffalo and Erie County Medical Center, who reviewed data from more than 150,000 U.S. car crashes in 2010.

Not only were obese people more likely to die in a car crash, those who did survive suffered greater degrees of injury that were tougher to treat, medical professionals said.

Dr. Mark Reiter, American Academy of Emergency Medicine president, told ABC's "Good Morning America" medical procedures like inserting breathing tubes and chest tubes for collapsed lungs were more difficult to perform on obese car crash victims.

"It does seem reasonable to utilize test dummies that have different body types," Reiter said, to determine how obese body types affect injury severity.

Tagscrash test dummies, car crashes, obseity, humanetics, ntsb, driving, seat belts, air bags