When real people slide their cars into ditches and then roll over, blow through stop signs and get broadsided by sport utility vehicles, or drive smack into poles, their injuries are outside what the test data of crash test dummies would predict, Wang added. That's partly because federal standards don't require testing those scenarios, and partly because real people aren't very often the 150-pound males used as test dummies. When a sport utility vehicle hits a sedan broadside, serious head injuries are more likely than in sedan vs. sedan crashes. Injuries from head-on crashes against poles and trees are nearly four times more severe than in car vs. car crashes. Federal standards don't require testing this scenario.
Obese drivers are more likely to sustain broken bones and more likely to die.
They're also less likely to wear their seat belts. Reducing the power of air bags to lessen injuries to smaller people may make injuries to larger people worse. Elderly drivers are 20 times more likely to suffer severe chest injuries than younger drivers, and are more likely to die of those injuries. Many of the talks were accompanied by frightening pictures of mangled cars and injured people. Because the study is just starting, researchers aren't sure why these patterns exist.