Vehicle design and injuries sustained by female drivers

McFadden, Michael

Affiliations

¹Federal Office of Road Safety, Australia

Abstract

It has long beenr ecognisedt hat male drivers are at greater risk of being killed in a road crash than female drivers. What is less well recognised is that female drivers have a higher risk of being seriously injured in a road crash.

One factor that has been identified as contributing to this trend is that women tend to be less robust than men. Female drivers also tend to sit closer to the steering wheel and this may increase the likelihood of injury in a crash. The issue has taken on greater significance with recent reports of children and small adults, mainly women, killed or injured by the deployment of airbags in crashes.

The current study analysed the factors relating to the seating position of male and female drivers.

Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv16/98s2p22.pdf

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Cited By (3)

Year	Entry
2001	Welsh R, Lenard J. Male and female car drivers: differences in collision and injury risks. In: 45th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 24-26, 2001; San Antonio, TX.
2001	Lenard J, Welsh R. A comparison of injury risk and pattern of injury for male and female occupants of modern European passenger cars. In: Proceedings of the 2001 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. October 10-12, 2001; Isle of Man, UK.
2013	Malczyk A, Müller I, Eßers S, Hänsel M. Effects of seating position of short stature drivers in frontal impacts. In: Proceedings of the 2013 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 11-13, 2013; Gothenburg, Sweden.842-853.