Overview
- Tapping Austrian crash records from 2012 to 2024 and detailed reconstructions, TU Graz found women face a 1.6× higher chance of injury when a man and a woman are in the same vehicle.
- At the same impact speeds, women had more than double the risk of severe injury or death, with the chest, spine, arms and legs most often affected.
- The passenger seat and reclined or far-back postures raised risk because belts and airbags are tuned for an upright, standard position, and poor belt fit or thick clothing can let the body slide under the lap belt in a ‘submarining’ event.
- Vehicle safety tests still center on a 50th‑percentile male body, and commonly used ‘female’ dummies are scaled-down male models that do not reflect typical female pelvis, chest or shoulder geometry for frontal or side impacts.
- Euro NCAP has begun running evaluations with different seat positions and human models this year, and the TU Graz team urges adaptive belt‑force limiters and wider use of virtual human models to update consumer tests and approval rules.