Why Do Women Have a Higher Car Accident Risk Injury Rate?
Data shared by IIHS shows that while men are much more likely to be involved in fatal crashes than women, women have a higher chance of being seriously injured or killed in crashes of equal severity.
If you or a loved one was seriously injured in a car crash because of the negligence of another driver, contact a local car accident lawyer to discuss your legal rights.
Why do women have a higher car accident risk injury rate?
It turns out that the differences in injury rate is not related to the fact that women are smaller on average, but rather, it’s because of the types of vehicles that women choose to drive and the circumstances around their collisions. Women more often choose cars and other lighter vehicles, while men more often choose pick up trucks and other heavier vehicles. In addition, women are less likely to cause accidents.
What is the increased injury risk faced by women?
On a per crash basis, women are 20-28 percent more likely than men to be killed and 37-73 percent more likely to be seriously injured after speed and other factors are accounted for. The good news is that crashworthiness improvements that have been made to vehicles such as more effective airbags and better seat belts do benefit both men and women more or less equally. Because of the higher injury rates, however, there have been calls to include crash-test dummies that better recreate how women’s bodies react to the impact of collisions.
A study that looked at injuries for both men and women for front and side-impact crashes between 1998 and 2015 found:
- In side-impact crashes, men and women were about equally as likely to suffer a moderate injury but women were about 50 percent more likely to experience a serious injury such as a collapsed lung.
- In front-into-rear collisions, women were found to be three times as likely as men to suffer a moderate injury like a broken bone and twice as likely to experience a serious injury like a traumatic brain injury.
There were two main differences that accounted for most of the discrepancy:
- The fact that women tend to choose smaller, lighter vehicles.
- Data from FARS shows that in two-vehicle front-to-rear and front-to-side crashes, men were more likely than women to be the driver who crashes into the other vehicle (the driver of the striking vehicle is at lower risk of injury than the driver of the struck vehicle.)
Safety improvements
In front accidents, a good vehicle safety rating benefitted women more than men, except when it came to leg injuries where women were about 70 percent more susceptible to serious leg injuries and two and a half times more likely to experience moderate leg injuries. In side-impact crashes, a good vehicle safety rating benefitted women and men about equally for moderate injuries but benefitted women more for serious injuries. Other studies have also found that more crashworthy vehicles created more benefits for women for most serious accident injuries.
Seek the help of a car accident attorney
If you or a loved one was injured because of the negligence of another, contact a personal injury lawyer to discuss your legal rights. Let an experienced car accident attorney fight for the full compensation that you deserve. It is not uncommon to receive a settlement from the insurance company that is five to ten times larger with the help of a lawyer. Call the personal injury lawyers at Tario & Associates, P.S. in Bellingham, WA today for a FREE consultation! We have been representing residents of Whatcom County, Skagit County, Island County and Snohomish County since 1979. You will pay nothing up front and no attorney fees at all unless we recover damages for you!
