Lard butts more likely to die in car crashes than non-Americans

Why is the person in the middle more likely to die in a car accident than those on either side of her? [That's assuming that she makes it through the turnstile. Ed.]  A study published by the University at Buffalo in 2010 gives us the answer.

You would think that extra padding would serve to protect the fatties, kind of like built-in airbags. But noooo. UB researchers found that morbidly obese people were 56 per cent more likely to die in a crash than induhviduals [Hello, Scott Adams!] of normal weight. Moderately obese people were 21 per cent more likely to perish.

What lesson should we learn from this? Does it mean Americans -- the obese people with matching cars -- should think seriously about losing weight? Errr, no. Instead of instituting a national diet, the US nanny state is being urged to force manufacturers to build bigger, stronger cars to better protect the circumferentially challenged.

The lead researcher, Dietrich Jehle [Wonder if his surname rhymes with "belly"? Ed.] noted, "The rate of obesity is continuing to rise, so it is imperative that car designs are modified to protect the obese population, and that crash tests are done using a full range of dummy sizes. If they represented our overweight American society, there could be further improvements in vehicle design that could decrease mortality."

A follow-up study in 2012 found that obese drivers are less likely to wear seatbelts than normal weight drivers and that puts them at increased risk of injury or death in the event of a crash. So the solution, obviously (?), is to build crash-test dummies which are "more representative of the population" -- i.e. fatter -- which will lead to the design of safer vehicles.

So said Chris O'Connor, CEO of  Humanetics, one of the leading manufacturers of the dummies in the US, at the lunch ["launch", shurely! Ed.] of their newer, larger model. "If we have 35 per cent of our population that is obese and they're driving," he said, "certainly we want to make sure they are safe. I think we all know a neighbour, friend, relative, or we can speak of ourselves to say why shouldn't we be safe in these cars, as safe as anyone else?"

Indeed. And may I be the first to suggest a name for the new model. Call it "The Big Dummy". Good luck with that!