Women in America Are in Danger—And Many Don't Even Know It | Opinion

One of the defining elements of a car crash is chaos—crumpled metal, shattered glass, the blare of sirens, the smell of burnt rubber and leaking fluids. It can end with injury or even death. Even for those lucky enough to escape a crash unscathed, it's a traumatic experience.

We trust safety tests to bring order to chaos and keep us as safe as technology allows. We rely on them to determine safety measures to protect road users from injuries and death.

But for decades, women have been fooled—everyone has been completely fooled.

Every day, millions of people in the United States get behind the wheel. While we all know we're taking a risk each time we enter a vehicle, some of us are unwittingly taking a bigger risk than others. As studies consistently show, females are far more likely to be injured or die in a crash than men. We're 9 percent to 28 percent more likely than men to die in comparable vehicle crashes, and 73 percent more likely to be seriously injured.

There is an obvious reason: an enormous equality gap in vehicle crash safety tests. Right now, the government regulator of auto safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), doesn't require equal tests or use dummies that reflect the bodies of women—or anyone who isn't a 5'9" man who weighs 171 pounds.

This matters much more than you might think. There are significant differences in female bodies and the way we're positioned as both drivers and passengers. When we only use dummies shaped like "average" men, we only know how their bodies react to crashes. Everyone else is at a potentially higher risk.

Remarkably, women are generally represented in crash testing with a smaller version of the crash test dummies used to represent men. These smaller male dummies do not reflect the physical differences in the way weight is distributed in women's bodies, their body shape, or how women are positioned in seats. Using male dummies to stand in for females does not give us useful data about how women's bodies will react in crashes, or allow us to create solutions to protect them.

Studies have highlighted this problem for decades, but there is a growing consensus that we need to fix this injustice now. Safer tests mean safer vehicles—preventing death and making better vehicles for the marketplace that will make America's manufacturers more competitive.

NHTSA has been the roadblock here. The rest of the government, however, seems headed in the right direction. In March of this year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that called out inequalities in U.S. crash testing and equipment.

We all deserve to have an equal chance of surviving a crash, and the GAO report recognized that this is not currently the case: "Certain demographic groups continue to face greater risks of injury or death in crashes. Specifically, research indicates that in crashes with similar conditions, females are at greater risk of death and of certain injury types, such as to the lower legs, than males."

The cause is getting significant congressional support, too. Last year, 66 members of the United States House of Representatives and three senators sent a letter to the Department of Transportation (DOT) urging them to "transition to the latest generation of crash test dummy technology to test outcomes on both male and female occupants."

This summer, House and Senate appropriations reports instructed NHTSA to push forward with equal tests and equipment. The Senate language directs the agency to "require the same frontal crash tests for both male and female drivers." The DOT acknowledged last year that "gender disparities are unacceptable" and "the approval process has taken too long." Secretary Pete Buttigieg has also committed funding to furthering equality in crash testing.

Yet NHTSA continues to have no roadmap. They consistently fail to even meet their own deadlines for action. The GAO report included a response from NHTSA, in which they said they would provide a detailed recommendation "within 180 days of the final report's issuance." The report was issued on March 8, 2023, which would have put this self-imposed deadline on Sept. 4. That deadline has come and gone.

The rest of the government has signaled bipartisan agreement that now is the perfect time to fix inequalities in our crash test system. NHTSA needs to catch up and mandate these changes now.

Every year that NHTSA fails to require updated tests, thousands of lives are needlessly lost. Many more people are seriously injured. We owe it to our mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends to ensure their cars are as safe as possible for them. NHTSA must set a clear path for action—right now—to save women's lives and end this injustice.

Susan Molinari served in Congress for five terms representing a New York City-based district, and was quickly elevated by House Republicans to serve in the leadership of the first GOP majority in 40 years. She later served as Google's vice president of public policy for the U.S., Mexico, Latin America, and Canada.

Beth Brooke retired as the global vice-chair—public policy at EY and a member of the firm's global executive board. During the Clinton administration, she worked in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she was responsible for all tax policy matters related to insurance and managed care. Together, they are the co-chairs of VERITY Now, a nonprofit dedicated to equality in transportation safety.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.