Vehicle choice, crash differences help explain greater injury risks for women | Hacker News Reader

Vehicle choice, crash differences help explain greater injury risks for women

iihs.org

17 pointsbookofjoe27 comments

> “The numbers indicate that women more often drive smaller, lighter cars and that they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes,” says Jermakian. “Once you account for that, the difference in the odds of most injuries narrows dramatically.”

It doesn't seem to make sense that women are more likely to be driving the struck vehicle (compared with men)? Just that when they are struck the consequences of being in smaller, lighter vehicles are more severe.

Unless smaller, lighter vehicles are more likely to be struck or men are targeting women drivers?

I don’t get the impression that neither women nor smaller cars are more likely to be struck. It’s just that men are more likely to drive bigger cars, where the impact is less likely to cause major damage.

>It doesn't seem to make sense that women are more likely to be driving the struck vehicle (compared with men)?

in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes

You're far more likely to survive hitting someone in the side of their car than you are getting hit.

"It doesn't seem to make sense that women are more likely to be driving the struck vehicle"

This depends on the population under observation.

Given all struck vehicles, I also cannot imagine that women are more likely to be their drivers.

But given all women involved in accidents, it intuitively makes sense to me that they are driving the struck vehicle more often.

On average, I would expect men to drive more aggressively, take higher risks and therefore cause more accidents.

> But given all women involved in accidents, it intuitively makes sense to me that they are driving the struck vehicle more often.

Yes agree with that: women who are involved in accidents are more likely to be in the struck vehicle makes much more sense.

>“The numbers indicate that women more often drive smaller, lighter cars and that they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes,” says Jermakian. “Once you account for that, the difference in the odds of most injuries narrows dramatically.”

Seems like science is confirming some readily observable vehicle/life choice preferences and stereotyped driving habits.

The fact that they restricted the research to tow away crashes likely enlarged the percentages they reported.

I can see why women on the whole might drive smaller, lighter cars. But why would the following be true?

> they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes

I suppose smaller cars are harder to see at intersections (side-impact) and when in traffic, smaller cars can't see past the larger vehicles in front of them to see the traffic stopping so braking response is slower.

You appear to be blaming the person being run into, which is almost always wrong (at least in Michigan)

ITYM people in larger cars can't see what's going on in front of them (side-impact) and when in traffic, larger vehicles can't stop in time.

There's a few lifetimes worth of dashcam video on youtube that clearly show (metaphorically speaking, a lot of them are 480p after all) it's often not that simple.

What is the "it" you are referring to?

Attributing fault for an accident. Plenty of cases where someone gets hit from behind because they pulled into traffic with too little room to spare or did something other traffic participants could not have reasonably forseen. Yeah there are plenty of people who text message their way into stopped traffic but there's enough edge cases that the generalization falls down.

I would also be interested in data showing that people being run into were mostly at fault. That's not how things happen in MI.

My comment didn't put culpability on anyone. The comment I was replying to wondered why those two categories were worse. I supposed there's a connection between the size of the vehicle and the visibility (being seen and not being able to see).

sparrish> I suppose smaller cars are harder to see at intersections (side-impact) and when in traffic, smaller cars can't see past the larger vehicles in front of them to see the traffic stopping so braking response is slower.

phjesusthatguy3> You appear to be blaming the person being run into, which is almost always wrong (at least in Michigan) ITYM people in larger cars can't see what's going on in front of them (side-impact) and when in traffic, larger vehicles can't stop in time.

To make it clear: I'm blaming the vehicle that runs into the other vehicle. You appear to be saying "if the vehicle that got run into was more visible, it wouldn't have gotten run into"

The article has a more nuanced title. "Vehicle choice, crash differences help explain greater injury risks for women"

With the title here on HN being "Women much more likely than men to be seriously injured or killed in car crashes", I was expecting the crashtest dummies to not take women into account but this is not the case here.

Another nuance that should be added: men are 2.5x more likely to die as a result of a crash (same website: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/gende...). For passengers, however, the stats are almost identical.

The fact that the statistics are almost identical for passengers suggests to me that another factor is likely at play here. It would be interesting to see the gender differences for drivers when there are passengers in the car.

Can also be an age thing: older and younger people are driven around more. Or a combination of factors, most likely.

I don't live in the USA, but here the ratio male-female casualties in traffic accidents is also 70%-30%. The age groups 20 to 29 plus 70 and up make up 55% of all casualties.

Beginning of article's first sentence: "Women are much more likely than men to suffer a serious injury when they are involved in a crash..."

And you'll notice it's immediately followed by ", but...". I agree this should be changed to the original headline.

> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you used the more more dramatic partial first sentence to ... get more attention?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Vehicle choice, crash differences help explain greater injury risks for women

Actual title.

“The numbers indicate that women more often drive smaller, lighter cars and that they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes,” says Jermakian. “Once you account for that, the difference in the odds of most injuries narrows dramatically.”

That would actually be enough for the content.

Flagged for editorialized title.

From the Associated Press: "Study: Smaller cars may be why crashes injure women more" https://apnews.com/article/us-news-charlotte-injuries-ae5395... . This should be considered in setting fuel economy standards.

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