If you are overweight, your chances of dying in a car accident are greatly increased, according to a new study.
It found that heavier people are up to 80% more likely to die in an accident than drivers of a healthy weight, with obese women most at risk.
The research, published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, found that fat people are propelled further forward during a collision because their additional soft tissue prevents the seat belt tightening immediately against their pelvic bones.
The study, which took place in the US, included 6,806 drivers involved in 3,403 collisions, of which 18% were classified as obese, 33% were overweight and 46% had a healthy weight.
Its findings show those who were most obese, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or over, were 80% more likely to die in an accident than drivers of a healthy weight.
And obese women were found to be at greater risk than men, with a BMI of 35 and over roughly doubling the risk of death compared with women of normal weight.
With obesity on the rise in the UK as well as the US, it is hoped that car manufacturers will try to adapt their safety features to better protect larger Britons.
Report author Dr Tom Rice of the University of California told the Daily Mail newspaper: "Findings from this study suggest that obese vehicle drivers are more likely to die from traffic collision-related injuries than non-obese occupants involved in the same collision.
Education is needed to improve seat belt use among obese people. Clinical intervention could inform obese patients of the additional traffic injury risks and potential benefits of losing weight."
In the meantime, the AA advises drivers to adjust their seats according to their size to allow the air bag to protect them properly in the event of a crash.
Seems like this might be more of an issue for some people than cellphones should be.
Quite frankly, I'm so fed up with all these studies warning about this or that. I wish government and academe would all take a tall drink of shut the f*** up issuing relentless nanny studies. Unless a meteor is approaching Earth and threatening to obliterate life on the planet then, yah, I'd like to hear about it and read the latest report. Other than that, I'd really like to live my life without their nanny warnings.
Rant over.
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Quite frankly, I'm so fed up with all these studies warning about this or that. I wish government and academe would all take a tall drink of shut the f*** up issuing relentless nanny studies. Unless a meteor is approaching Earth and threatening to obliterate life on the planet then, yah, I'd like to hear about it and read the latest report. Other than that, I'd really like live my life without their nanny warnings.
Rant over.
No kidding. In that study posted in the cellphone thread, one guy was quoted as saying drivers wont be safe until cellphones are jammed in vehicles.
The nanny state will make you blow into a breathalyzer, jam your cellphone, and give you a blood test before you are allowed to drive.
People who buy into this crap deserve to have their rights restricted, however they will try to force it on everyone.
So Bee, do you think you have a "right" to drive while drunk, using a cellphone or anything else that impairs your ability to drive safely?
Just curious.
A straw man or straw person, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally,[1][2] is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[3] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and to refute it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[3][4] This technique has been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly in arguments about highly charged, emotional issues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
No kidding. In that study posted in the cellphone thread, one guy was quoted as saying drivers wont be safe until cellphones are jammed in vehicles.
The nanny state will make you blow into a breathalyzer, jam your cellphone, and give you a blood test before you are allowed to drive.
People who buy into this crap deserve to have their rights restricted, however they will try to force it on everyone.
You specifically referred to them as "rights".
And currently, the only people that have to blow into a breathalyzer are those that have broken the law and drove drunk. Do you think that having their "rights" restricted is wrong?
I seriously doubt they will ever force everyone to do those things prior to being convicted offenders.
I do think that if you are caught texting while driving, they should put a cellphone jammer in your car.
In case you haven't figured it out, people that text and drive piss me off to no end. Every time I see it, I want to follow that person to their destination and then take their cell phone and shove it so far up their ass they will be able to text with their tongue.
And currently, the only people that have to blow into a breathalyzer are those that have broken the law and drove drunk. Do you think that having their "rights" restricted is wrong?
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