It may not be politically correct to refer to women as the weaker sex, but it turns out that the tender gender really are more likely to be injured in a car crash - especially when wearing a seat belt.
This is the bottom line in a new study focusing on the role of gender in traffic accidents published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Women drivers - and passengers - apparently have a higher risk of chest and spinal injuries when wearing seat belts than men who are involved in similar accidents.
According to the study, this is because women are generally smaller than men, and their preferred seating positions are different. Accident data going back as far as 1998 shows that women are 47 percent more likely than men to be injured in a car crash while wearing a seat belt.
Of course, this is not an excuse for ladies to stop wearing seat belts - without them your risk of being injured in a crash is way, way higher no matter what sex you are - but rather a plea for automakers to start looking building female-friendly car seats and seat-belt attachment points.
However, Clarence Ditlow of the Centre for Auto Safety pointed out that the scope of the study, stretching over more than a decade, means that some of the cars involved would now be almost 20 years old, making the data out of date.
He said: "The study would have a lot more value if it were limited to cars made after 1999, to make sure all vehicles had female-friendly airbags."
Source: IOL ONLINE
This is the bottom line in a new study focusing on the role of gender in traffic accidents published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Women drivers - and passengers - apparently have a higher risk of chest and spinal injuries when wearing seat belts than men who are involved in similar accidents.
According to the study, this is because women are generally smaller than men, and their preferred seating positions are different. Accident data going back as far as 1998 shows that women are 47 percent more likely than men to be injured in a car crash while wearing a seat belt.
Of course, this is not an excuse for ladies to stop wearing seat belts - without them your risk of being injured in a crash is way, way higher no matter what sex you are - but rather a plea for automakers to start looking building female-friendly car seats and seat-belt attachment points.
However, Clarence Ditlow of the Centre for Auto Safety pointed out that the scope of the study, stretching over more than a decade, means that some of the cars involved would now be almost 20 years old, making the data out of date.
He said: "The study would have a lot more value if it were limited to cars made after 1999, to make sure all vehicles had female-friendly airbags."
Source: IOL ONLINE
0 comments:
Post a Comment