The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes

[jimmy olsen]

A lot of interesting statistics in this article, but I thought this part at the end was the most eye opening.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes

How women are put at risk on the roads

Men are more likely than women to be involved in a car crash, which means they dominate the numbers of those seriously injured in them. But when a woman is involved in a car crash, she is 47% more likely to be seriously injured, and 71% more likely to be moderately injured, even when researchers control for factors such as height, weight, seatbelt usage, and crash intensity. She is also 17% more likely to die. And it's all to do with how the car is designed – and for whom.

Women tend to sit further forward when driving. This is because we are on average shorter. Our legs need to be closer to reach the pedals, and we need to sit more upright to see clearly over the dashboard. This is not, however, the "standard seating position", researchers have noted. Women are "out of position" drivers. And our wilful deviation from the norm means that we are at greater risk of internal injury on frontal collisions. The angle of our knees and hips as our shorter legs reach for the pedals also makes our legs more vulnerable. Essentially, we're doing it all wrong.

Cars have been designed using car crash-test dummies based on the 'average' male
Women are also at higher risk in rear-end collisions. We have less muscle on our necks and upper torso, which make us more vulnerable to whiplash (by up to three times), and car design has amplified this vulnerability. Swedish research has shown that modern seats are too firm to protect women against whiplash injuries: the seats throw women forward faster than men because the back of the seat doesn't give way for women's on average lighter bodies. The reason this has been allowed to happen is very simple: cars have been designed using car crash-test dummies based on the "average" male.

Crash-test dummies were first introduced in the 1950s, and for decades they were based around the 50th-percentile male. The most commonly used dummy is 1.77m tall and weighs 76kg (significantly taller and heavier than an average woman); the dummy also has male muscle-mass proportions and a male spinal column. In the early 1980s, researchers based at Michigan University argued for the inclusion of a 50th-percentile female in regulatory tests, but this advice was ignored by manufacturers and regulators. It wasn't until 2011 that the US started using a female crash-test dummy – although, as we'll see, just how "female" these dummies are is questionable.

In 2018, Astrid Linder, research director of traffic safety at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, presented a paper at the Road Safety on Five Continents Conference in South Korea, in which she ran through EU regulatory crash-test requirements. In no test is an anthropometrically correct female crash-test dummy required. The seatbelt test, one of the frontal-collision tests, and both lateral-collision tests all specify that a 50th-percentile male dummy should be used. There is one EU regulatory test that requires what is called a 5th-percentile female dummy, which is meant to represent the female population. Only 5% of women will be shorter than this dummy. But there are a number of data gaps. For a start, this dummy is only tested in the passenger seat, so we have no data at all for how a female driver would be affected – something of an issue you would think, given women's "out of position" driving style. And secondly, this female dummy is not really female. It is just a scaled-down male dummy.

Consumer tests can be slightly more stringent than regulatory ones. The 2011 introduction of female crash-test dummies in the US sent cars' star ratings plummeting. When I spoke to EuroNCAP, a European organisation that provides car safety ratings for consumers, they said that since 2015 they have used male and female dummies in both front-crash tests, and that they base their female dummies on female anthropometric data – with the caveat that this is "where data is available". EuroNCAP acknowledged that "sometimes" they do just use scaled-down male dummies. But women are not scaled-down men. We have different muscle mass distribution. We have lower bone density. There are differences in vertebrae spacing. Even our body sway is different. And these differences are all crucial when it comes to injury rates in car crashes.

The situation is even worse for pregnant women. Although a pregnant crash-test dummy was created back in 1996, testing with it is still not government-mandated either in the US or in the EU. In fact, even though car crashes are the No 1 cause of foetal death related to maternal trauma, we haven't yet developed a seatbelt that works for pregnant women. Research from 2004 suggests that pregnant women should use the standard seatbelt; but 62% of third-trimester pregnant women don't fit that design.

Linder has been working on what she says will be the first crash-test dummy to accurately represent female bodies. Currently, it's just a prototype, but she is calling on the EU to make testing on such dummies a legal requirement. In fact, Linder argues that this already is a legal requirement, technically speaking. Article 8 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union reads, "In all its activities, the Union shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women." Clearly, women being 47% more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash is one hell of an inequality to overlook.

Designers may believe they are making products for everyone, but in reality they are mainly making them for men. It's time to start designing women in.

[crazy canuck]

And let me tell you about a world built for short people

[PDH]

Or a world built for right handers,

[Razgovory]

Or the sane!

[11B4V]

Quit your cryin'

[Josquius]

Wonder if the sexists will adopt this research as proof wimmin shouldnt be doing these things.

[dps]

Well, clearly the real solution would be custom-designed seats for every individual, but that's obviously not practical.

[crazy canuck]

Well, clearly the real solution would be custom-designed seats for every individual, but that's obviously not practical.

I have often joked about bringing a failure to accommodate complaint against airlines for making it impossible for me to sit in anything other than business class.  But the way the law is evolving in response to people getting more obese and the need for passenger carrying services to accommodate that girth I am thinking that I might have a good shot 

[viper37]

Or a world built for right handers,

fuck yeah!

[derspiess]

Wonder if the sexists will adopt this research as proof wimmin shouldnt be doing these things.

MEN DRIVE

[Grey Fox]

And let me tell you about a world built for short people

and let me tell you about a world built for tall right handed people.

[crazy canuck]

And let me tell you about a world built for short people

and let me tell you about a world built for tall right handed people.

Oh god, I wish it were so.

[Valmy]

This would be important information to know if I was designing cars.

Women tend to sit further forward when driving. This is because we are on average shorter.

So why wouldn't this impact short people? Why just women? Short men do not have this problem?

Anyway cars suck ass and I hate them and driving. I will add this to my reason why: they are sexist woman killers.

[frunk]

So why wouldn't this impact short people? Why just women? Short men do not have this problem?

It certainly could, but stats on height in auto accidents isn't as available.

[The Larch]

So why wouldn't this impact short people? Why just women? Short men do not have this problem?

It certainly could, but stats on height in auto accidents isn't as available.

The article also mentions that it's not only about height, but also the fact that test dummies are all "male" so safety measures are designed with men in mind.