Women are more likely to get hurt in car accidents than men, according to a new study by researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), Austria.
Even when a man and a woman are involved in the same collision, the woman is 60 per cent more likely to be injured than the man, the scientists found.
“Our analyses show that women are injured disproportionately more often, especially in the chest, spine, arms and legs,” said project coordinator Dr Corina Klug.
Klug and her team analysed Austrian road accident data of around 2,000 road crashes from the years 2012–2024.
Then, they reconstructed individual accidents using virtual human models – computer simulations – to compare what happens to male and female bodies during collisions.
The scientists discovered that women over the age of 50 were particularly at risk of injury.
Also, when crashes happened at low speed, women were more than twice as likely to be seriously injured or killed as men.
“In our study, both females and males were involved in the same crashes and travelled in the same vehicles, meaning that the differences were not due to vehicle type, crash speed or crash configuration,” Klug told BBC Science Focus.
“The differences also cannot be explained simply by the fact that females are more often passengers, although this factor does increase the gap.”
Instead, she said, this added risk seemed to come from the differing proportions and weight distributions between male and female bodies.
That matters because of the way car safety has been tested and designed for decades.
Specifically, manufacturers have used crash-test dummies the size and shape of a man, modelled on the demographic averages of 1970s America: 175cm (5ft7) tall and weighing 78kg (172lb).
That’s not to say manufacturers always use these dummies. Increasingly, they’ve used ‘female’ models too – but these are just small versions of the male figure, and they’re shorter and less heavy than 95 per cent of women.
“Women are not little men,” said Klug. “And models of very small, petite women are often unable to represent what we observe in the accidents.”
Vehicles have therefore been designed to be as safe as possible for male bodies, while the risk for women stays disproportionately high.
To solve this problem, the authors said that female crash-test dummies should be heavier and better represent the anatomy of the average woman – with wider pelvises, fuller chests and smaller shoulders than current dummies.
They also recommended the use of virtual crash models, to help manufacturers assess vehicle safety on a variety of bodies and seating positions.
In the meantime, there are several ways car-users can improve their safety, starting with the position of their seat.
“We’ve all seen a passenger seat positioned far back or even reclined,” said Klug. “However, airbags and seat belts are not designed for such non-standard positions.”
The scientists found that the passenger seat was a more dangerous position in the car than the driver’s seat, especially when too far back or reclined.
Coauthor Dr Felix Ressi, also from TU Graz, told BBC Science Focus: “Adjust your seatbelt properly. The lap belt should sit on your pelvic bone, and the shoulder belt should sit on your sternum and be aligned with the middle of your clavicle.”
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