The figure comes from a study by the Institute of Vehicle Safety at Graz University of Technology, published in May 2026. Researchers analysed approximately 2,000 real road crashes from Austrian accident data collected between 2012 and 2024, then reconstructed those incidents using virtual human body models to compare what happens to male and female bodies under identical conditions. The results were unambiguous. When a man and a woman are in the same vehicle, involved in the same crash, the woman is 1.6 times more likely to be seriously injured. At low speeds, women were more than twice as likely to be seriously injured or killed. Older women faced the greatest risk of all.
The injuries showing the largest disparity were to the chest, spine, arms and legs. These are not minor statistical variations. They are the consequence of designing restraint systems, airbags and seat geometry around a body type that most women do not have.
The body type in question is the 50th percentile male: a standardised model representing a man of 77 kilograms and 175cm that has been the primary reference for vehicle crash testing since the practice began. A female crash test dummy has existed since 1976, but it is not a model of the female body. It is a smaller male dummy, representing approximately the fifth percentile of women, around 152cm tall and 49 kilograms. According to the TU Graz research, 95 per cent of women are actually larger than this reference figure. The safety infrastructure has spent decades testing against a model that does not represent the population it is supposed to protect.
This is not purely an issue of size. The researchers were explicit that women are not simply smaller men. Differences in pelvic structure, chest shape, shoulder geometry and spinal motion all affect how crash forces travel through the body and where injuries concentrate. A seat belt calibrated for a 77-kilogram male torso applies different forces to a female torso in the same crash at the same speed. An airbag timed to deploy for a male body can strike a shorter occupant in a different phase of movement. These are engineering problems, not inconvenient coincidences.
The passenger seat adds another layer. Women are statistically more likely to occupy the front passenger position than to drive, and front passengers often recline their seat or sit farther back than drivers. Both of these positions reduce the effectiveness of airbags and belts. The TU Graz study identified seating position as a significant independent factor in injury risk, separate from the body geometry issue.
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The TU Graz findings are not isolated. A separate 2026 study from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, analysing national crash data, found that women are 42 per cent more likely to suffer serious injuries in frontal crashes than men involved in comparable collisions. Women face a 128 per cent higher risk of foot and ankle injuries in frontal impacts. In rollover crashes, women have three times the risk of serious arm injuries. The NHTSA researchers controlled for seatbelt use, crash severity, vehicle type and age. The disparity remains after all of those adjustments are removed.
There are signs of change. The US government formally introduced the THOR-05F crash test dummy last year, a model built around realistic female anatomy rather than a scaled male figure. The She DRIVES Act, currently before the US Congress, would require female dummies to be used in both front and rear seating positions in federal crash test programmes, and is estimated to be capable of saving more than 1,300 lives annually if enacted. Volvo's new EX60 has introduced a safety belt system with multiple adaptive functions, monitoring occupant size, posture and seating position and adjusting the restraint system's response accordingly.
These are meaningful steps. They are also steps that are arriving roughly seventy years after the problem was built into the standard. Every generation of vehicle safety improvement since the first mandatory seatbelt legislation has been calibrated against a body that the majority of occupants do not have.
The TU Graz researchers called for vehicle safety systems and legal test standards to be adjusted accordingly. The NHTSA's findings point in the same direction. The question of why this has taken this long to reach regulatory frameworks is one that the automotive industry and the bodies that govern it will need to answer.
The 60 per cent figure is striking. What sits behind it is simpler and more damning: for most of the history of the modern car, women were an afterthought in the testing room.
Sources
- TechXplore / TU Graz — Crash data reveal women face 60% higher injury risk than men (primary study source)
- BBC Science Focus — Why women are 60% more likely to be injured in a car crash than men
- Carscoops — Car Crashes Are 60% More Dangerous For Women, And The Dummy Is Why
- Bioengineer.org — New Research Reveals Women Face 60% Higher Risk of Injury in Car Accidents
- NHTSA study summary — Do Women Face Higher Injury Risk in Car Accidents? What the NHTSA Found (citing NHTSA report: Sex-Based Differences in Odds of Motor Vehicle Crash Injury Outcomes)
- Women in Balance — Are Cars More Dangerous for Women?
