Abstract

Female and male drivers have different size proportions and anthropometry. However, in the United States and throughout the world, male crash dummies are the norm in vehicle testing and female crash dummies with representative anthropometric characteristics has not yet been used in testing to date. Given this discrepancy, female driver safety is not considered at the same level as male driver safety in the vehicle design and testing process. This research investigates the gap in literature of injury locations experienced by female and male drivers in comparable crashes using a newly created linked dataset of crash and emergency medical services (EMS) data in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Generalized linear regression and k-fold cross validation of over 26,000 unique crash cases were analyzed using explanatory and predictive methods. These analyses revealed that female drivers are more likely to experience their primary anatomic injury as an abdomen, chest, lower extremity, and upper extremity injury than male drivers. The results of this research can be used by researchers, vehicle designers, and policymakers to act upon these differences in injury outcomes and consider them in the development of a safe environment for all roadway users.

摘要

女性和男性司机有不同的尺寸比例和人体测量学。然而，在美国和世界各地，男性碰撞假人是车辆测试的标准，而具有代表性人体测量特征的女性碰撞假人迄今为止尚未用于测试。鉴于这种差异，在车辆设计和测试过程中，女性驾驶员的安全与男性驾驶员的安全不同。这项研究使用马萨诸塞州联邦新创建的碰撞和紧急医疗服务 (EMS) 数据链接数据集，调查了女性和男性司机在类似碰撞中所经历的伤害位置文献中的差距。使用解释性和预测性方法分析了超过 26,000 个独特碰撞案例的广义线性回归和 k 倍交叉验证。这些分析表明，与男性驾驶员相比，女性驾驶员更容易遭受腹部、胸部、下肢和上肢等主要解剖损伤。研究人员、车辆设计师和政策制定者可以使用这项研究的结果来针对伤害结果的这些差异采取行动，并在为所有道路使用者开发安全环境时考虑这些差异。