Car seats 'ignore women'

Whiplash is a 'very real injury', Professor Gentle says

Car seat designs should be modified to better cater for women, according to a whiplash researcher.

Professor Richard Gentle, from Nottingham Trent University, said current car seats were designed to cater for men because they are the main drivers of fleet cars.

However women are more susceptible to whiplash, he said.

After five years of research, Professor Gentle and his team have designed a new device they say could prevent whiplash injuries.

Neck expert

It would be safer if they were designed around women as they are much more susceptible to these injuries to the neck

Professor Richard Gentle

The device is a collapsing spring which can be fitted underneath car seats.

It currently exists only as a computer model, but Professor Gentle is speaking to car seat manufacturers with the aim of having it developed and manufactured, to be used in future car production.

Professor Gentle's research recently won the Duncan Dowson Prize for the best paper published over the last year in the journal of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

"It (the win) is evidence that it is possible to do world-class engineering research in one of the new universities on a low budget.

"I think it shows the quality of our research supervision is second to none in the UK."

The next stage of the research will be to look into why women suffer more from whiplash than men, working with the University of Bristol and the Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg.

"Most car seats are designed around men, as they are the most common drivers of fleet cars, but in fact it would be safer if they were designed around women as they are much more susceptible to these injuries to the neck," Professor Gentle said.