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Who’s the worst driver? Men or women?

I was reading the newspaper and there was an article about “Who’s the worst driver, men or women?” And it was funny. You know, I mean, obviously a man is going to say women and women are going to say men. But the studies go both ways

Women drive less and they have more car accidents. Looking at six and a half million car accidents in the United States, University of Michigan researchers found that women were involved in 68% of the crashes.

That surprised the researchers, who claim that during the time period of the study, men actually drove more 60% of the time and women drove only 40% of the time. What that means is that even during the time of that study (between 1998 and 2007), male drivers were on the road much more. Yet women racked up a higher accident rate.

So the bottom line on this university level study published on Syracuse.com claimed that women are worse drivers and get in more crashes despite driving more than men.

So women are the worst drivers!… Well, you would think that based on that study. However, I have another study that shows insurance numbers actually prove that men cause more car accidents.

National Insurance Group reports that men rack up a higher amount of drunk driving arrests. Men rack up a higher number of drunk driving, arrests, traffic violations and cause more accidents. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety findings include the following: men causet 6.1 million accidents each year, while women only cause 4.4 million. 71% of all motor vehicle crash deaths in 2016 were males.

In the 24 years before 2016, the proportion of fatally injured passenger vehicle drivers with blood alcohol concentrations at or above the legal limit of 0.08 registered substantially higher for males than females. This insurance group based its findings on National Highway Safety Administration data, which also showed speeding as a contributing factor for a greater proportion of male drivers killed in motor vehicle crashes than for females killed in car accidents.

On the other hand

There’s a car insurance company in the United Kingdom that came up with its own research. The company by the name of Diamond reported that nearly a half a million UK accidents each year are caused by women applying their makeup behind the wheel. Trust me, we don’t make this up.

It’s said that 10% of all accidents involving women occurred while taking the kids back and forth to school. Only 1% of such accidents involve men. UK lawyers claim that in the one year before that study, which was published on March 14th, 2018, they saw a 50% increase in the number of women going to see them because they were facing charges of negligent driving. Driver stress caused by busy lifestyles is said to be the main cause of an increased number of accidents among middle aged women.

Although that’s interesting, another study says men are more likely to violate laws on the highway. A U.S. insurance company got the opposite results from what we just read.

A study done for MetLife found that men are over three times more likely to receive tickets for reckless driving than women. The same study carried out by the research firm Quality Planning, reported that men are cited for drunk driving three times more often than women. Women are, on average, less aggressive, law abiding drivers. Only 39% of men in that study thought men were safer drivers.

The bottom line in this report, bad driving habits bring higher insurance rates. Insurance companies set rates based on classes of driver and who makes more claims. Car insurance rates for women are lower than those for men. Nearly everywhere across the U.S. Based on your gender alone, your insurance rate might be higher or lower.

Setting insurance, what they call the actuarial of car insurance, is one of the last places in the United States where discrimination is actually legal and valid and done every day. In other words, women in the same demographic, in the same metropolitan area. Women pay less for their insurance than men.

You may read studies saying men are the worst drivers and I may read studies showing that women are the worse drivers. I think it talks more about the studies and the fact that no matter what the issue is, you probably can find studies that prove whatever point you want to make. And you know what? It’s important to take things like that into consideration, because there might not be a set answer.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, General Statistics, 2017. Link
Women Really ARE worse drivers than men, Lisa Edwards, March 14, 2018, petrolprices.com. Link .

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To read our previous post on the topic, click here

Lainey