Why women sustain more serious injuries than men in car crashes

[Skanky Vamp]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The smaller, lighter vehicles that women more often drive may explain why they are much more likely to suffer a serious injury in a collision than men, a new study published Thursday found. Researchers from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group supported by auto insurers, looked into whether there was some sort of gender bias in the research into vehicle crashes or whether body type had anything to do with the injuries.

They analyzed injuries of men and women in police-reported tow-away front and side crashes from 1998 to 2015. Among the findings were that in front crashes, women were three times as likely to experience a broken bone, concussion or other moderate injury, and twice as likely to suffer a serious one like a collapsed lung or traumatic brain injury.

“The numbers indicate that women more often drive smaller, lighter cars and that they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in front-into-rear crashes,” said Jessica Jermakian, IIHS vice president of vehicle research, in a statement. “Once you account for that, the difference in the odds of most injuries narrows dramatically.”

And more than 20% of men crashed in pickups, compared with less than 5% of women.

It's not the size of the vehicle that matters; it's how they're made. With all of the government restrictions on weight and gas mileage of vehicles, companies have to make them lighter and lighter and less sturdy. The small cars of old could obliterate the small cars of today. All this report will do will push even more people into SUVs. It's sad that the old reliable sedan is no more.

 

[TriBel]

It's not the size of the vehicle that matters; it's how they're made.

...or what you do with it. I drive a small car. Primarily because I'm crap at parking but also because I don't need a penis. Take SUVs off the road.

 

[gwenogjones]

I believe 'Invisible Women' by Caroline Criado Perez has a whole section on how the testing in the car industry is all designed to check safety on the average height and weight of men and of course that is no good for checking if the car is safe for smaller, lighter people with different body structures (ie women). It's a data driven book and the data shows women are affected more by car crashes and that safety tests do not check cars are safe for women.

It isn't about the types of cars women 'choose' to drive. It's poor health and safety standards in the automotive industry. A woman in a bad car crash in an SUV will still sustain worse injuries than a man in a bad car crash in a SUV - because cars are just not designed to keep women safe. They're designed to keep men safe.

 

[Priceless]

Invisible Women by Caroline Craido Perez is must-read material for anyone who cares about women in this world. It's basically an expose on how everything, including cars, are designed for male bodies.

The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes

 

[TriBel]

It's a data driven book and the data shows women are affected more by car crashes and that safety tests do not check cars are safe for women.

It's basically an expose on how everything, including cars, are designed for male bodies.

Yeah...but a) I don't think that's new and b) I don't think everything is down to "data". Indeed to presume it is is to fall back on what's considered in some quarters as a "masculinist" way of thinking. "Man" has always been the standard by which things are measured. The slogan for the age of reason is "man is the measure of all things" - and they meant man. Ditto..."the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity". Fraternity for god sake. So...you can improve standards...make cars safer for women...but it that going to impact (pun not intended) on the way they're driven and what they represent?* Will making Kevlar vests more adaptable to the female form address the canteen culture of the police? It's a start but then so were various Equality Acts and despite what some folk argue, we're still fighting discrimination and there's a long way to go before we achieve equality (if ever). To my mind, it's less the "real" of women that holds us back...it's her symbolic and imaginary function. @Myheadsgonenumb - I think woman are still, in some shape or form, "muse".

*My head is now replaying Thelma & Louise.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Will making Kevlar vests more adaptable to the female form address the canteen culture of the police?

The police aren't the issue, the SJWs are. On the Mandalorian tv series, they gave some female characters armour that was clearly designed for women and the SJWs lost their minds over the "boob armour" calling it sexist and a demonstration of misogyny etc.

Not every car is going to fit every type of size and shape of a person. Cars designed for short/average size women are no good for tall women or men. Likewise, cars designed with taller people in mind are no good for shorter people. Car manufacturers have to do their best to find a crash test dummy that represents the majority of people and if that is male size so be it.

It's ironic that left leaning thinking seems to associate anything involving men as "patriarchal", "sexist", "misogynistic" etc and that it "oppresses" women, yet at the same time, the left also wants to completely devalue women as a gender and calls it "inclusion".

 

[Professor Walsh]

Not every car is going to fit every type of size and shape of a person. Cars designed for short/average size women are no good for tall women or men. Likewise, cars designed with taller people in mind are no good for shorter people. Car manufacturers have to do their best to find a crash test dummy that represents the majority of people and if that is male size so be it.

Except we now know that you cannot do crash tests with one type of dummy only and think that the test you have done is relevant for the majority of people.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Except we now know that you cannot do crash tests with one type of dummy only and think that the test you have done is relevant for the majority of people.

But you are not going to get a car that suits everybody. You have an adult dummy, a child dummy and a toddler dummy. The adult dummy will be average height.

 

[gwenogjones]

The thing is - yes you can design a car that will be safe for everyone. The problem is that in the past they used to check using a one size dummy and then assume, as that dummy was fine, it would be fine for everyone. Even when they started using different size dummies, they just scaled down the regular dummy, they didn't take into account the way body structure would change the outcome.

All they need to build a safe car is a set of dummies accurately representing men, women and children - put them in different places in the car and work out the safety issues. It's not that you can't build a safe car, it's that they never even bothered to look into the safety issues and then put cars on the road that were not tested for the safety of 50% of the population.

True, nothing will ever be perfect - no car will ever be 100% safe. But overlooking the safety of 50% of the population is pretty appalling.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

But overlooking the safety of 50% of the population is pretty appalling.

If you are basing the effectiveness are designing a car to withstand damage based on the 'body size' of a crash test dummy then it's a far lower number than 50%; more like 10%. But that's not how and why they are used.

 

[gwenogjones]

Well the book explains it all better than I can - but yes, not even thinking to check the impact on a woman shaped dummy is specifically overlooking 50% of the population. Like, it didn't even enter their heads that it might be different for women. Men as the default is so ingrained and that negatively effects women in so many aspects of life. It is a man's world and women are an afterthought - or in this case, not even a thought at all. And they pay for that with their lives. That is what is appalling.

 

[nightshade]

As someone who had a very bad car crash in a tiny car, I'm more than happy with what safety checks they do, as not only did I survive it, I came out with barely a scratch, apart from severe whiplash which was mostly my fault as I had removed the headrest to put new seat covers on and hadn't put it back.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

As someone who had a very bad car crash in a tiny car, I'm more than happy with what safety checks they do, as not only did I survive it, I came out with barely a scratch, apart from severe whiplash which was mostly my fault as I had removed the headrest to put new seat covers on and hadn't put it back.

Be glad you're not a woman otherwise you might have gotten injured.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

If you are looking at the engineering process of designing a car, the main criterion for a crash test dummy is mass. Manufacturers have used the mass of an average male in the past, not because they have no concern for women but because a seat track and seatbelt designed for a 100 kg man is going to behave in the same way for a 100 kg woman. If anything, the concentration of a woman's weight closer to the hip area gives them a better chance at survival. There is a lot of information saying that the mass has increased substantially over the past few generations - at one time, the standard person for aircraft weight and balance calculations was 150 lb. After the crash of a commuter aircraft was found to be due to overloading, this was changed to 190 lb.

The main purpose of the crash test is to show that there is no intrusion of vehicle structure into the passenger or failure of the restraint system and this does not change with the gender of the dummy. What I have noticed is that a lot of women do not cinch their seatbelts up tight and do not know what to do with the shoulder harness that goes over one breast and under the other. Many cars such as my Subaru have a shoulder belt height adjustment that few women optimize for their own use.

Modern vehicles are designed with crush zones that reduce the acceleration forces of a crash by deforming at a predictable rate. Not every car has the same crash characteristics. There is an overreliance on air bags as a sop to the people who don't wear seatbelts anyway - there should be no need to design for this situation and I am in favour of people who are not belted in being unable to sue for any kind of damages because they have done this to themselves.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Many cars such as my Subaru have a shoulder belt height adjustment that few women optimize for their own use.

That's because they can't figure it out and don't know it's there.

 

[gwenogjones]

What I have noticed is that a lot of women do not cinch their seatbelts up tight and do not know what to do with the shoulder harness that goes over one breast and under the other.

It's not that women don't know what to do with seat belts - it's that seat belts are not designed with people with large breasts in mind. It's another case of design being formulated to fit the male body and women just having to contort themselves to fit a mould not meant for them, that doesn't protect them the way it is supposed to ... and then they get accused of 'not knowing what to do'.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

How many people read the manual that comes with the car? I bet not many and then, only to figure out the entertainment system or how to set the clock. As @Spanky said, not many people even realize they have shoulder belt adjustments at their disposal. My 5'9" D-cup wife had no problems with seatbelts - you just have to set the shoulder adjustment once and remember to cinch them down to maximum retraction - this latter part is where most of the problem lies. If the seatbelt is not tight, it cannot protect you.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

How many people read the manual that comes with the car?

Manual? The last three vehicles I got didn't even have a manual. You can go online and look. Not having to print a manual that "no one" uses helps to keep the cost low.
Bwahaha. That's really what they are saying.

 

[gwenogjones]

Not many women are 5'9" - that's average man height, the height cars are designed to work for. Shorter women have to adjust the seat height to see over the dashboard, and then need to move their seat as far forward as possible to still reach the pedals. This affects the usefulness and comfort of the seat belt. Lots of large breasted women get cut across the chest and either have to put up with pain and restriction or having to wear the belt part too loose to be of any use.

I drive a small car. I'd say it is a car that is predominantly sold to women. I'm average height for a woman. I have my seat as high as it will go - I can't see very well over the dashboard. I have my knees jammed under the wheel because otherwise - being so high up - my feet don't touch the pedals. And in the event that I have to slam on, my seat belt chokes me across the neck.

Because all these problems are integrated. You can fix one but that leads to another. The entire design needs a rethink.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

One thing I have seen women do is deliberately leave a seatbelt loose because it adds creases to their clothes. If you defeat the safety mechanisms, don't be surprised if you get a worse outcome than extra creases.

My daughter is 5'4" and also has large breasts. She does not have the same restriction you talk about, either in the Subaru or the Miata (which does not have a shoulder belt height adjustment). She has learned to live with a tight belt, so it is not impossible - you just have to pay attention to what matters.