More focus needed on the buying experience for women

If you are a man reading this, congratulations. You have won the game of life. The world is designed around you.

Gender inequality manifests itself in many different ways. Some are relatively frivolous if somewhat irksome, such as the bathroom mirror in a Liverpool hotel I stayed in recently. Even standing on tiptoe, I could only view the top of my head and none of my face.

There are comfort issues too, with the metabolic rate of women employees lower than that of men, so that an office or showroom set at a comfortable temperature for male employees and visitors is typically around five degrees cooler than female staff and customers might prefer.

Sounds familiar? Look around you at men in their shirtsleeves with jackets slung over the backs of their chairs, and female colleagues wrapped up as if expecting snow on the way home.

More seriously, car safety has been designed around male sizing data, and tested on crash test dummies that are structured around the dimensions of an average male body. The most commonly used dummy for car crash testing has long been one 5 ft 9 ins tall and weighing 176 lbs. So, quite a bit taller and heavier than an average woman.

No wonder she tends to sit closer to the steering wheel than is ideal, simply to be able to reach the pedals and see over the dashboard to view the road ahead.

Meanwhile, the gear lever is routinely a bit too close for comfort, and in cars with a traditional mechanical handbrake, she has to perform an awkward ‘chicken-wing’ manoeuvre to engage the brake. Then, releasing the handbrake is often a similar action but with an awkward two-handed heave.

Cannier motor manufacturers are recognising this, and adjusting their testing procedures and equipment to include a wider range of test dummy dimensions.

Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo are both notable for their work on moving towards equalised gender data. But the bulk of the industry still has much more work to do on this front.

On more expensive vehicles, aids such as seat height elevation, height-adjustable seatbelts and steering wheel adjustment can help close the gap. Too often, though, the half-moon arc of a B pillar seat belt feeder suggests adjustment without actually delivering it, and pedals are routinely too far forward for optimum female driver comfort and safety. All of this can be somewhat of a pain for half the motoring population – the female half – and for dealers trying hard to deliver a positive buying experience. It can be difficult wooing women customers to visit a showroom that is just slightly too cool for their comfort, to browse for a purchase among shiny and enticing models that don’t quite fit their dimensions.

Dealer staff can be a valuable conduit of information about customer feedback on issues such as this, and would do both their potential customers and their manufacturer partners a valuable service in identifying the issued raised. It’s time for a shift towards cars that work  well and deliver optimum comfort and safety to all of us, and not just prioritised towards half the population.

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Written by Sue Baker for Motor Trader.