VERITY NOW CONDEMNS NHTSA FOR WILLFULLY IGNORING GENDER DISPARITIES IN CAR SAFETY
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, VERITY NOW, a coalition to end gender discrimination in vehicle safety testing, released a statement responding to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) new report that minimizes the clear gender gap in vehicle safety and downplays NHTSA’s role in creating these disparities.
“This is an attempt by NHTSA to gloss over gender disparities in crash fatalities. Time and again, NHTSA creates inequitable safety standards for men and women, rewriting the rules or flat out ignoring their own data,” said VERITY NOW Co-Chair and former Congresswoman Susan Molinari. “Women are more likely than men to die in similar collisions. Women are 73% more likely than men to be severely injured in similar frontal collisions according to NHTSA’s own data. Yet this so-called study ignores the tens of thousands of women who are severely injured every year due in large part to NHTSA’s refusal to protect them. This report is a disgraceful attempt by NHTSA to deny women the same vehicle safety protections the government already provides to men. Secretary Buttigieg should step up and fix this mess that NHTSA created.”
“NHTSA’s use of cherry-picked data to minimize the clear gender disparities in crash fatalities and injuries is an insult to crash survivors, women, and all taxpayers. History shows us NHTSA can act urgently when far fewer lives are at risk, from ignition switches to air bags, they take action. However, when it comes to women, they replace urgency with excuses,” said VERITY NOW Co-Chair and former Global Vice Chair of Public Policy for EY Beth Brooke. “NHTSA is attempting to muddy the issue by claiming it has been using female crash test dummies all along. In fact, NHTSA has never tested for women in the driver’s seat in its frontal or side impact NCAP tests, and in other tests where NHTSA claims it accounts for women, the agency has refused to mandate the use of dummies that truly represent female physiology. Due to NHTSA’s refusal to treat women’s safety with the same priority given to men’s safety, in similar crashes, women are more likely than men to die or be seriously injured. Nothing in this study changes those basic and intolerable facts.”
NHTSA acknowledged that women are far more likely to be killed than men. For example:
“When examining the crash data from the 2000s (2000 - 2019), the female fatality risk relative to males is 13.5 percent.”
“When using data from more recent crash years (2015 - 2019), the fatality risk difference is 9.1 percent.”
“The estimated female fatality risk relative to males stays at 20 percent or more for all occupant protection types for nearside impacts.”
NHTSA only examined gender disparities in crash fatalities. It did not examine gender disparities in injuries from car crashes. The most recent comprehensive study, using NHTSA’s data, concludes “belted female occupants have 73% greater odds of being seriously injured in frontal crashes compared to belted males (after controlling for collision severity, occupant age, stature, body mass index and vehicle model year).” The study also finds “the difference in risk is greatest for injury to the lower extremities” where NHTSA’s outdated crash test dummies have no sensors.
VERITY (Vehicle Equity Rules in Transportation) NOW is a coalition voicing concern about gender inequities in vehicle safety and raising awareness with policymakers in the U.S. who have the power to fix them. VERITY NOW strives to achieve equity in vehicle safety by educating on, and advocating for, crash testing standards that protect everybody, regardless of gender.
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