This statistical survey carried out by British academics shows that men are half as likely to be prisoners of the cabin. Explanation: the security systems do not sufficiently take into account the differences in morphology.
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According to its authors, this is the first large-scale statistical study focusing on inequalities between women and men with regard to road accidents. Researchers from the University of Plymouth, England, studied data from just over 70,000 patients admitted to trauma services in the UK between 2012 and 2019 after a road accident. According to their results, published on Tuesday May 3 (in English), the risk for a woman of being stuck in a vehicle is almost twice as high as for a man.
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While men are over-represented among cases of serious injury, they find themselves trapped in the passenger compartment of the vehicle less frequently than women (9.4% against 15.8%). This survey also shows that the types of injuries differ according to the sex of the patients. Male patients are more frequently injured in the head, face, thorax or limbs. While women more often suffer shocks to the pelvis and vertebrae.
The British researchers hope that their study will lead to improved vehicle design to reduce these inequalities in the face of risk. They explain that the crash tests are still carried out with dummies based on the physical properties of men. The safety systems are therefore not adapted to the morphology of the drivers or passengers. For example, whiplash prevention systems are, according to the Plymouth team, significantly more effective in protecting men’s vertebrae than in women’s.
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