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> women are 17 percent more likely to die in a car crash and 73 percent more likely to sustain serious injuries in a front-end collision. It makes sense to at

> women are 17 percent more likely to die in a car crash and 73 percent more likely to sustain serious injuries in a front-end collision. It makes sense to at least measure the differences and hopefully we can find ways to improve overall safety. However I am automatically wondering a gender disparity in outcomes is a simple issue about genetics? Average women are far less muscular and are less robust than men, it makes sense given the same forces they'd be more damaged than men. Thats going to be something you cannot fix (if you distribute the forces more evenly then both genders will still have disparate outcomes due to structural differences) One thing that these kinds of articles never seem to address is what is an acceptable rate? To illustrate the point with arbitrary numbers is a 1% improvement worth $10B ? IDK, but that's more of the kind of effort I'd like to see from writers.

Sander_Marechal 4y ago
IIRC a similar study was done in Europe. The conclusion was that women are indeed more likely to die or sustain serious injuries, but that the cause of that was that woman, on average, drive smaller cars. So, they are more vulnerable in a collision. Just look around you. How often do you see families where the man is driving the big fancy SUV and the woman is driving the smaller "second" car?
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Just look around you. How often do you see families where the man is driving the big fancy SUV and the woman is driving the smaller "second" car? Maybe it's a regional thing, but around here the big SUV replaced the minivan as a "women's car". I hear safety (i.e. wanting to "win" in a crash, often phrased exactly like that) as a common reason for the choice. Their husband will drive a similarly-huge truck, usually.
  - walthamstow 4y ago
    I have heard exactly the same sentiment from women here in the UK. Not a single one of the women I have spoken to about this realise they are participating in an arms race. The husband in the UK will more likely drive a fast, sexy coupe/hatchback/saloon with a large engine, rather than a truck.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  In my experience in America, women prefer huge SUVs while men prefer more sporty cars, or trucks. Huge SUVs are slightly feminine because they're good for getting the kids to soccer practice. SUVs ate the market for vans, another vehicle good for moving a bunch of kids around. That's just my observations. The data might say otherwise.
  - watwut 4y ago
    > Huge SUVs are slightly feminine because they're good for getting the kids to soccer practice Genuinely, in what way? When I am taking kids somewhere, I want car that fits into small parking space. I just dont see what SUV would help with.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      In most parts of the US, sports practice areas tend to have ample parking. Optimizing for "fits into small parking space" is largely a benefit only in cities.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      SUVs come in all sizes now, and there's some advantage to certain sizes. Most people don't have an array of vehicles to choose from except when buying, so they don't really get much of a choice between "the car" and "the SUV". When you have small children a minivan becomes really nice, since the doors open wide which helps with car seats and booster buckling.
      - watwut 4y ago
        We had Ford fiesta with one kid and slightly bigger car when two kids. No issue with buckling nor car seat.
        bombcar 4y ago
        When number of kids > number of rear doors is when it gets spicy.
- bombcar 4y ago
  In many cases the woman drives the "mom van" (minivan or SUV) to shuttle kids around, and the man drives "the car" (usually a sedan of some sort) to work and back each day. With all these studies it's very important to correct for various differences and interpret the data. I suspect Volvo, for example, has a pretty good idea on these things (because they wouldn't compare all vehicle but particular models, etc).
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  > IIRC a similar study was done in Europe. The conclusion was that women are indeed more likely to die or sustain serious injuries, but that the cause of that was that woman, on average, drive smaller cars. So, they are more vulnerable in a collision. Was the more to it? If they are aware of this fact, it feels like it would be trivial to control for it, to determine whether women are still more vulnerable in the same types of vehicles.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
I suspect you're right. Efforts to make cars safer for women will succeed, but at the same time they'll also make cars even safer for men. The 'average' man is able to survive more physical trauma than the average woman, because the average man has denser bones, muscles, etc. Consider that 4x as many women than men have osteoporosis. Disparities like that will lay a heavy finger on crash data.
jefftk 4y ago
> To illustrate the point with arbitrary numbers is a 1% improvement worth $10B ? The NHTSA uses estimates for "Statistical Value of Life and Injuries" and "Value of Travel Time": https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/economic-values-used-in-analysis https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/economic-values-u... For 2021 they value a life at $11.8M: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-policy/revised-departmental-guidance-on-valuation-of-a-statistical-life-in-economic-analysis https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-... Very roughly, if your 1% improvement cost $10B/y, the NHTSA would consider it worth it if it averted at least 847 (10B/11.8M) annual deaths.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  Cool! I never knew that. Thanks for the great comment!
kulahan 4y ago
I dunno that there's necessarily an acceptable rate so much as everyone's just aiming to get the rate to "lower than it is now" while keeping costs acceptable and reasonable. As for: "gender disparity in outcomes is a simple issue about genetics?" There's an easy way to find out! It might be possible to a small adjustment could help bring the disparity down without necessarily increasing the danger to men. I think it's worth looking in to (not to imply that you were saying it isn't).
cameronh90 4y ago
There are interesting stats from TfL in London. Women make approximately 25% of bicycle trips in London, but account for about 40% of the fatalities. Yet when you compare KSI (killed or seriously injured) by gender, men are more likely to be KSI for a given distance travelled. It's hard to interpret these statistics. I suspect there are significant behavioural differences, such as riding at different times of day and at different speeds, which account for some of the differences.
- quietbritishjim 4y ago
  Sounds like a classic case of Simpson's paradox [1]. Here's how it could work, but I've made everything up so might not be true at all - it's just an example of how those numbers could exist: * KSI goes up far less than expected as the journey length goes up (less than linearly, and maybe even down slightly between some categories). That's because the longer journeys are made by much more experienced cyclists - by definition, a very unfit cyclist never cycles 25miles, for example. * But the category of very shortest journeys makes up by far the largest proportion of journeys, so a straight unweighted averages of KSI across journey length categories would give a very unrepresentative view. * Those women that do cycle tend to be in the lower journey length categories because on average, women are less physically fit. In other words, women would tend to be in the relatively more dangerous category of shorter journey length. It's not more dangerous because it's shorter - it's more dangerous because you had to be less fit to be in it in the first place. Again, note that the above is all made up. But it shows how you could get to the contrdictory-sounding stats of the parent comment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  > there are significant behavioural differences And i would bet that normal characteristics of testosterone would explain a sizable portion of the difference.
- drak0n1c 4y ago
  Women have less bone density and less muscle mass than men. In an equivalent physical trauma situation they are more likely to be hurt than men, as both the physical reaction in the face of danger is less agile/powerful and the body is more fragile. Both of these apply even moreso when controlling a bicycle, because of the more direct control nuances and the greater force disparity (exposure to cars and obstacles around you).

Sander_Marechal 4y ago

IIRC a similar study was done in Europe. The conclusion was that women are indeed more likely to die or sustain serious injuries, but that the cause of that was that woman, on average, drive smaller cars. So, they are more vulnerable in a collision. Just look around you. How often do you see families where the man is driving the big fancy SUV and the woman is driving the smaller "second" car?

yamtaddle 4y ago
> Just look around you. How often do you see families where the man is driving the big fancy SUV and the woman is driving the smaller "second" car? Maybe it's a regional thing, but around here the big SUV replaced the minivan as a "women's car". I hear safety (i.e. wanting to "win" in a crash, often phrased exactly like that) as a common reason for the choice. Their husband will drive a similarly-huge truck, usually.
- walthamstow 4y ago
  I have heard exactly the same sentiment from women here in the UK. Not a single one of the women I have spoken to about this realise they are participating in an arms race. The husband in the UK will more likely drive a fast, sexy coupe/hatchback/saloon with a large engine, rather than a truck.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
In my experience in America, women prefer huge SUVs while men prefer more sporty cars, or trucks. Huge SUVs are slightly feminine because they're good for getting the kids to soccer practice. SUVs ate the market for vans, another vehicle good for moving a bunch of kids around. That's just my observations. The data might say otherwise.
- watwut 4y ago
  > Huge SUVs are slightly feminine because they're good for getting the kids to soccer practice Genuinely, in what way? When I am taking kids somewhere, I want car that fits into small parking space. I just dont see what SUV would help with.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    In most parts of the US, sports practice areas tend to have ample parking. Optimizing for "fits into small parking space" is largely a benefit only in cities.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    SUVs come in all sizes now, and there's some advantage to certain sizes. Most people don't have an array of vehicles to choose from except when buying, so they don't really get much of a choice between "the car" and "the SUV". When you have small children a minivan becomes really nice, since the doors open wide which helps with car seats and booster buckling.
    - watwut 4y ago
      We had Ford fiesta with one kid and slightly bigger car when two kids. No issue with buckling nor car seat.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        When number of kids > number of rear doors is when it gets spicy.
bombcar 4y ago
In many cases the woman drives the "mom van" (minivan or SUV) to shuttle kids around, and the man drives "the car" (usually a sedan of some sort) to work and back each day. With all these studies it's very important to correct for various differences and interpret the data. I suspect Volvo, for example, has a pretty good idea on these things (because they wouldn't compare all vehicle but particular models, etc).
JeremyNT 4y ago
> IIRC a similar study was done in Europe. The conclusion was that women are indeed more likely to die or sustain serious injuries, but that the cause of that was that woman, on average, drive smaller cars. So, they are more vulnerable in a collision. Was the more to it? If they are aware of this fact, it feels like it would be trivial to control for it, to determine whether women are still more vulnerable in the same types of vehicles.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

I suspect you're right. Efforts to make cars safer for women will succeed, but at the same time they'll also make cars even safer for men. The 'average' man is able to survive more physical trauma than the average woman, because the average man has denser bones, muscles, etc. Consider that 4x as many women than men have osteoporosis. Disparities like that will lay a heavy finger on crash data.

jefftk 4y ago

> To illustrate the point with arbitrary numbers is a 1% improvement worth $10B ? The NHTSA uses estimates for "Statistical Value of Life and Injuries" and "Value of Travel Time": https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/economic-values-used-in-analysis https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/economic-values-u... For 2021 they value a life at $11.8M: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-policy/revised-departmental-guidance-on-valuation-of-a-statistical-life-in-economic-analysis https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-... Very roughly, if your 1% improvement cost $10B/y, the NHTSA would consider it worth it if it averted at least 847 (10B/11.8M) annual deaths.

maerF0x0 4y ago
Cool! I never knew that. Thanks for the great comment!

kulahan 4y ago

I dunno that there's necessarily an acceptable rate so much as everyone's just aiming to get the rate to "lower than it is now" while keeping costs acceptable and reasonable. As for: "gender disparity in outcomes is a simple issue about genetics?" There's an easy way to find out! It might be possible to a small adjustment could help bring the disparity down without necessarily increasing the danger to men. I think it's worth looking in to (not to imply that you were saying it isn't).

cameronh90 4y ago

There are interesting stats from TfL in London. Women make approximately 25% of bicycle trips in London, but account for about 40% of the fatalities. Yet when you compare KSI (killed or seriously injured) by gender, men are more likely to be KSI for a given distance travelled. It's hard to interpret these statistics. I suspect there are significant behavioural differences, such as riding at different times of day and at different speeds, which account for some of the differences.

quietbritishjim 4y ago
Sounds like a classic case of Simpson's paradox [1]. Here's how it could work, but I've made everything up so might not be true at all - it's just an example of how those numbers could exist: * KSI goes up far less than expected as the journey length goes up (less than linearly, and maybe even down slightly between some categories). That's because the longer journeys are made by much more experienced cyclists - by definition, a very unfit cyclist never cycles 25miles, for example. * But the category of very shortest journeys makes up by far the largest proportion of journeys, so a straight unweighted averages of KSI across journey length categories would give a very unrepresentative view. * Those women that do cycle tend to be in the lower journey length categories because on average, women are less physically fit. In other words, women would tend to be in the relatively more dangerous category of shorter journey length. It's not more dangerous because it's shorter - it's more dangerous because you had to be less fit to be in it in the first place. Again, note that the above is all made up. But it shows how you could get to the contrdictory-sounding stats of the parent comment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox
maerF0x0 4y ago
> there are significant behavioural differences And i would bet that normal characteristics of testosterone would explain a sizable portion of the difference.
drak0n1c 4y ago
Women have less bone density and less muscle mass than men. In an equivalent physical trauma situation they are more likely to be hurt than men, as both the physical reaction in the face of danger is less agile/powerful and the body is more fragile. Both of these apply even moreso when controlling a bicycle, because of the more direct control nuances and the greater force disparity (exposure to cars and obstacles around you).