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Comment by throwaway0a5e | Hacker News Reader

>“The numbers indicate that women more often drive smaller, lighter cars and that they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes,” says Jermakian. “Once you account for that, the difference in the odds of most injuries narrows dramatically.”

Seems like science is confirming some readily observable vehicle/life choice preferences and stereotyped driving habits.

The fact that they restricted the research to tow away crashes likely enlarged the percentages they reported.

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I can see why women on the whole might drive smaller, lighter cars. But why would the following be true?

> they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes

I suppose smaller cars are harder to see at intersections (side-impact) and when in traffic, smaller cars can't see past the larger vehicles in front of them to see the traffic stopping so braking response is slower.

You appear to be blaming the person being run into, which is almost always wrong (at least in Michigan)

ITYM people in larger cars can't see what's going on in front of them (side-impact) and when in traffic, larger vehicles can't stop in time.

There's a few lifetimes worth of dashcam video on youtube that clearly show (metaphorically speaking, a lot of them are 480p after all) it's often not that simple.

What is the "it" you are referring to?

Attributing fault for an accident. Plenty of cases where someone gets hit from behind because they pulled into traffic with too little room to spare or did something other traffic participants could not have reasonably forseen. Yeah there are plenty of people who text message their way into stopped traffic but there's enough edge cases that the generalization falls down.

I would also be interested in data showing that people being run into were mostly at fault. That's not how things happen in MI.

My comment didn't put culpability on anyone. The comment I was replying to wondered why those two categories were worse. I supposed there's a connection between the size of the vehicle and the visibility (being seen and not being able to see).

sparrish> I suppose smaller cars are harder to see at intersections (side-impact) and when in traffic, smaller cars can't see past the larger vehicles in front of them to see the traffic stopping so braking response is slower.

phjesusthatguy3> You appear to be blaming the person being run into, which is almost always wrong (at least in Michigan) ITYM people in larger cars can't see what's going on in front of them (side-impact) and when in traffic, larger vehicles can't stop in time.

To make it clear: I'm blaming the vehicle that runs into the other vehicle. You appear to be saying "if the vehicle that got run into was more visible, it wouldn't have gotten run into"

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