Motor vehicle collisions consistently rank among the top causes of unintentional injury death in the U.S. In 2016, motor vehicle collisions came in second, behind unintentional poisonings. Following a decades-long decline in traffic fatalities, traffic injuries started rising again a few years ago. Experts attributed the increase to a myriad of factors, including the improving economy, low gas prices, and potentially the use of cell phones behind the wheel. In 2017, the number of motor vehicle fatalities declined slightly year-over-year, although it has yet to be seen whether this is a return to the previous trend or more of a leveling-off period.
Car safety has improved dramatically in recent years. I’d never even heard of such as thing as a booster seat when I had my children, and now my grandchildren use them regularly. In the early days, cars weren’t required to have side mirrors or even seat belts. Federal safety standards have grown stricter, and auto manufacturers regularly tout their safety-related credentials.
In all of this, there is one area that stands out: automobile safety standards for women. It wasn’t until testing on 2011 model vehicles that the U.S. government started mandating the use of smaller-sized crash dummies in some tests. Before that, test dummies were an approximation of the average male body, which is larger and heavier than the average female body. This matters because body size and weight matter when it comes to how external forces impact the body, which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who took physics in high school. Experts report that smaller bodies are typically less tolerant of the types of forces in involved in auto vehicle collisions. Women also tend to have less muscular necks, which makes them more prone to whiplash. One study found that belted female drivers were 47% more likely to suffer a serious injury in a collision than a male driver in a comparable type of crash. Given the disparity in injury rates, it’s vital that people be aware of how body size can affect safety so that they can make informed decisions.
