A new paper (gated version here) by Michael Sivak, Brandon Schoettle, and Jonathan Rupp takes a look at what keeps people alive in fatal traffic accidents. The authors find that women drivers involved in fatal crashes are more likely to die than men, and, not surprisingly, unbelted drivers are 2.1 times more likely to die than belted drivers. The effect of body mass index (BMI) is more complicated. For men wearing seatbelts, a higher BMI seems to offer some protection: “For example, the probability of being killed, if involved in a fatal crash, is 22 percent lower for belted male drivers with BMI between 35 and 50 as opposed to those with BMI between 15 and 18.4.” The opposite is true for unbelted males. For belted females, having a normal BMI gives you the best shot at survival.[%comments]
Will Your Spare Tire Save Your Life?
TAGS: transportation
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a good argument for eating while driving… especially when the roads are slick !!
Does this imply anything about passengers’ relative survival rates? What about the relative frequency of an accident being described as “fatal” (as a subset of all accidents), with respect to the gender of one or more of the drivers involved? Is there really any practical, useful information in this study? Who paid for it?
BMI range of 35-50 is very high. 25-30 is overweight, and 30-35 is obese, so we’re talking extremely obese people here.
Likewise, BMI range of 15-18.4 would be considered underweight, although not quite as much.
I’m more interested in the more realistic ranges of 19-35, where a majority of males will lie.
It seems like there are a wide range of factors to consider. I don’t see how it could be used to answer the question I am really interested in: Will my extra pounds help save me in a crash?
A plane crashed right on the border between two countries. In which country did they bury the survivors?
If you survive a car accident, isn’t it by definition not fatal?
Are the results corrected for vehicle type? I’m thinking the the BMI factor could just be a correlation because high BMI people are more likely to buy and drive gigantic land barges and trucks, whereas low BMI people are more likely to be in a compact or sports car?
Dan – Not if you survived but somebody else didn’t.
from my boots-on-the-ground experience:
-for women, high BMI correlates with junky cars, poor basal fitness, lower intelligence, and other poor health habits.
-for men, also the above, but less strength of the correlation.
-six inches of extra fat tissue and a seatbelt protects everyone in an MVA