Young Women Catch Up To Men in Auto Crashes & Seatbelt Injuries

Eddie Farah

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Consider it a sign of modern times.

You've seen them dashing in and out of traffic and tailing someone's bumper on the streets of Jacksonville. Young female drivers are catching up to their male counterparts in many ways--not all of them positive.

A study out of the University of California, Irvine, shows that over a ten year period, young female drivers began catching up with male drivers in riskier behavior behind the wheel. And while male drivers are increasing their use of seatbelts, young female drivers are not buckling up at the same rate as the men.

When combined with other factors such as cell phone use while driving and distractions from other teenagers in the car, the trends for young women are not positive.

Another study to be presented at this weekend's 2007 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Annual Meeting , finds that among 65,000 front seat crashes, people under 4'11 and those over 6'3,'' were actually harmed by the belts.

Body weight was not a contributing factor to injury rates. Since many "smart" airbags use body weight to determine how the airbag deploys, these data suggest that a new method needs to be found

People taller and smaller should not be seated in front of an airbag the study suggests.