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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So the study is of accidents in which at least one person died, but in which not necessarily one person survived? Seems like a silly way to qualify accidents. Something like “survival rates of multi-car collisions involving relative velocities of at least 30mph” would be more less arbitrary.
And look at me now, I’m usually the one sitting at my computer thinking “why do these commentors nit-pick these studies, how useless.” But I guess at some point the stupidity of it all kinda gets to you….
Nugget-
I’m not sure if that is entirely accurate. I know many smaller girls who prefer SUVs and other big cars because they feel safer in them and prefer the higher vantage point provided by them. Obviously, this is only anecdotal, but I think it is hard to correlate body type to vehicle type, as intuitive as the connection might be.
JZ-
Pretty ridiculous generalizations to draw, eh?
Without seeing the whole study, it’s hard to know, but I agree with Dan. Picking accidents where someone was killed, and someone else may or may not have been is fraught with complicating factors. If someone drunk doesn’t wear a seatbelt and T-bones a car at 35mph he could easily be killed while the belted passengers in the Volvo he hit are not killed. That’s hardly the same analysis as a head-on collision at 70mph where everyone is belted but killed anyway.
I’m usually pretty good at deconstructing these kinds of statistical statements, but “women drivers involved in fatal crashes are more likely to die than men” had me scratching my head for a while.
Obviously, a fatal crash, in this case, means a crash in which at least one person was killed and there may or may not have been survivors. And I can assume that “men” is short for male drivers involved in a fatal crash. But I’m still not sure what we’re comparing? Does this mean men are more often among the survivors of fatal crashes? Are we only comparing mixed-gender crashes? How is this statement even arrived at?
I knew all those Snickers, extra Big Macs, and fried apple pies would come in handy! Not only can I outlast everyone if they play a Survivor in Antarctica, but it is extremely unlikely that I can be successfully kidnapped!
And now to find that I am actually SAFER in an accident than my vegan snob friends. Oh, the sweetness of it all!
In fact, I think I’ll go out right now and take on a train. I am big, soft…and INVINCIBLE!
I wonder if gender is irrelevant and what we’re actually seeing is an effect of height — where things tend to hit you, whether the extra padding is more likely to cushion or crush.
Notes:
1) Way too many uncontrolled-for variables here.
2) My daddy always said the seatbelts’ secondary duty is to keep your butt planted firmly in a position to control the car.
3) I have always figured your chance of survival was lowered by wearing an expensive watch or jewelry. Those paramedics don’t make much money. Your chance of survival being carried out of the woods from a crash if you are wearing a $99,000 Breitling Bentley GMT watch is zero…particularly if I carry you.
4) Favorite humor: “I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my Dad, not terrified and screaming like the other people in his car.”
could be more to do with age than with the supposed shock resistance of adipose tissue.
I’m basing this on the assumption that younger people tend to be skinnier, and *also* tend to get in more accidents.