Women Significantly More Likely To be Injured In Car Crashes Than Men

Why are women significantly more likely to be injured in car crashes than men.  According to past studies, it appeared that seat belts were to blame. USA Today reported almost a decade ago, that most women who were harmed were “ of relatively short stature,” and “preferred seating posture and a combination of factors yielding lower safety protection from the standard restraint devices.” So seat belts weren’t designed with women in mind.

A new study from the University of Virginia suggests that, not only is this discrepancy still true, but the crash test dummies commonly used to test vehicle safety runs are also at fault. That’s because manufactures make very little effort to represent the bulk of human females when designing them.

The odds of serious injury or death for female car-crash victims is 73 percent higher than for males, which could have something to do with the fact that “average male” type dummies are most frequently used in crucial safety testing. When “woman-type” dummies were introduced in 2003, they were, and still are, only 5 feet tall, and weigh 110 pounds, which is outside the dimensions of the average woman. DUH!

Scientists conducting the University of Virginia study say “We obviously know a lot of ways that men and women are different bio-mechanically. These differences - fat distribution, pelvis shape - have the potential to change the ways that seatbelts interact with the body and with our underlying skeletal structures.” They said that the work to take this information and actually apply it to real-life safety measures “just simply has not been done yet.”

So hey, car manufacturers - FIX IT!!!