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Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity

Previous studies have analyzed the relationship between vehicle safety ratings from impact tests and actual crash injury severity. Nevertheless, no study has investigated the relationship in the context of gender disparity. The main objective of this paper is to explore the validity of the 5-star ra...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fu, Wen, Lee, Jaeyoung
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9140846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35627421
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105885
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author Fu, Wen
Lee, Jaeyoung
author_facet Fu, Wen
Lee, Jaeyoung
author_sort Fu, Wen
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have analyzed the relationship between vehicle safety ratings from impact tests and actual crash injury severity. Nevertheless, no study has investigated the relationship in the context of gender disparity. The main objective of this paper is to explore the validity of the 5-star ratings of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which describes vehicles’ protectiveness, using actual traffic crash data by gender. Random parameter models are developed using 2015–2020 two-vehicle crash data from Maryland, United States. According to the data, over 90% of vehicles have 4–5 stars in overall, front-impact, and side-impact 5-star ratings. After controlling other factors, it is shown that woman drivers are more likely to be seriously injured in two-vehicle crashes than men drivers when using vehicles with the same 5-star safety ratings. Moreover, there is significant individual heterogeneity in the effect of vehicles with different 5-star safety ratings on driver injury severity. Using vehicles with more stars can reduce the risk of being seriously injured for most man drivers. However, the probability of woman drivers being seriously injured is reduced by approximately 5% on average by using vehicles with higher star ratings in the overall and front-impact 5-star rating, and individual heterogeneity shows a difference of nearly 50% in positive and negative effects. The overall and front-impact 5-star ratings of vehicles could not provide reasonable information as the safety performance of vehicles in traffic crashes for woman drivers. On the other hand, drivers’ residence, driving characteristics, crash types, and environmental characteristics are significantly associated with the injury severity. It is expected that the results from this study will contribute to guide a better vehicle safety design for both men and women.
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spelling pubmed-91408462022-05-28 Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity Fu, Wen Lee, Jaeyoung Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Previous studies have analyzed the relationship between vehicle safety ratings from impact tests and actual crash injury severity. Nevertheless, no study has investigated the relationship in the context of gender disparity. The main objective of this paper is to explore the validity of the 5-star ratings of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which describes vehicles’ protectiveness, using actual traffic crash data by gender. Random parameter models are developed using 2015–2020 two-vehicle crash data from Maryland, United States. According to the data, over 90% of vehicles have 4–5 stars in overall, front-impact, and side-impact 5-star ratings. After controlling other factors, it is shown that woman drivers are more likely to be seriously injured in two-vehicle crashes than men drivers when using vehicles with the same 5-star safety ratings. Moreover, there is significant individual heterogeneity in the effect of vehicles with different 5-star safety ratings on driver injury severity. Using vehicles with more stars can reduce the risk of being seriously injured for most man drivers. However, the probability of woman drivers being seriously injured is reduced by approximately 5% on average by using vehicles with higher star ratings in the overall and front-impact 5-star rating, and individual heterogeneity shows a difference of nearly 50% in positive and negative effects. The overall and front-impact 5-star ratings of vehicles could not provide reasonable information as the safety performance of vehicles in traffic crashes for woman drivers. On the other hand, drivers’ residence, driving characteristics, crash types, and environmental characteristics are significantly associated with the injury severity. It is expected that the results from this study will contribute to guide a better vehicle safety design for both men and women. MDPI 2022-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9140846/ /pubmed/35627421 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105885 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fu, Wen
Lee, Jaeyoung
Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity
title Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity
title_full Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity
title_fullStr Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity
title_full_unstemmed Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity
title_short Relationship between Vehicle Safety Ratings and Drivers’ Injury Severity in the Context of Gender Disparity
title_sort relationship between vehicle safety ratings and drivers’ injury severity in the context of gender disparity
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9140846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35627421
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105885
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