Women drivers are more likely to die in crashes because the male drivers who hit them are more likely to be driving trucks and SUVs, a new study finds renewed evidence of the long-overdue reckoning the nation must have with its male mega-car problem.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety report shows that people of all genders are roughly equally likely to survive a vehicle-to-vehicle collision when the cars they drive are similar to one another in size. But because 40 percent of men involved in crashes were driving taller, heavier vehicles whose designs prioritize occupant survival above all else, they had a higher survival rate than women, 70 percent of whom were behind the wheel of small-format vehicles at the time of impact. (A New York City-specific study found evidence of the same phenomenon in America’s largest metro two years ago.)