As a highly qualified FEMALE driving instructor with eighteen years experience of instructing and forty years experience of driving, I just have to add a few facts here!

Firstly, women tend to take fewer risks, which is why they do not make good racing drivers. There is also the problem that they can rarely reach the pedals on a racing car! And let's not forget, please, that racing has absolutely no relation to driving on a road.

Secondly, back in the fifties it may well have been true that there were more male drivers on the road, but not today.

Thirdly, women have less experience if they are in a relationship, because every time they go anywhere which involves a long journey, the old man usually drives. Either he insists on it, or she cannot stand the criticism so let's him do it.

I have cringed myself at the sight of women with those awful four traks and people movers, trying to park. They don't have the experience so make themselves look daft and should really go take some lessons on parking. I saw a woman only last week trying to reverse a huge great Audi four wheel drive into a space that would only have taken a smart car if it were dropped from above! Could this be the old myth I have heard about spatial awareness? whatever that is!

Women don't make better drivers, they just have fewer accidents because they don't take risks, and generally speaking are not doing the sort of fast roads and situations where a serious accident could occur.

I hope this has cleared up a few misconceptions.

Felicity,

You certainly set the blokes off with this thread...lol

Gotta admit I used to be making the same comments when I was driving in England but now, after being out here in Asia for last 8 months, I think you are all very professional drivers....Half the drivers out here were tanked up in the Pub before Skywalker and CMK got their first pint!

I shall never moan about lady drivers again....

The reasons Insurers tend to offer lower prices for female drivers are that they generally do a lower annual mileage than male drivers so this reduces the amount of accidents. They tend to drive less agressively than males and have slower speed accidents eg car parks and reversing which are cheaper claims to repair for Insurers and often these claims involve no expensive personal injury claims.

The stats I have seen would indicate that if an equal mileage was driven by females they would have roughly the same amount of claims as males but they would still attract cheaper premiums as their accidents would be cheaper to settle due to the nature of their claims

And in breaking news today Skywalker has just left the country for an unknown desert island populated by real blokes only!

But seriously though "safer" doesn't really come into it actuarialy - I genuinely know and have observed "people" who proudly say "I've never had an accident" and the old comeback of "No but you've certainly caused a few" is fair and reasonable.

Below is the guts of it and if Urangatangs could get licences and built up statitistics to show they never had accidents there would be a stampede for their business at a lower than average level and some Monolith would give Sheila's Wheels the b*ms rush in favour of U-tangs Wheels.

Insurance companies price for risk, and claims data shows that male drivers make more car insurance claims than their female counterparts.

If the mods allow, I have found video evidence.

http://www.kewego.co.uk/video/iLyROoaftPWo.html

Huckster

Aha - yes I have seen it but no, it wasn't my missus. She would have just barged the other cars out of the way to make the space bigger...

Hi Mooreaz,

Reading your anecdotes has reminded me of the viral i saw on tv's Rudetube - where a women spent 4 minutes trying to reverse into a space -- it was highly comical more so when an aggrivated driver waiting to get through offered to tdo it for her and managed it very quickly. -- did anyone else see this?

There is a further possibility...

Maybe the accidents that are caused by men are more often than not on the open road. In these cases, involving the insurance companies is almost always likely.

However, the accidents involving women may be more of an embarrassing nature. For example, my wife managed to drive her car straight into mine (despite mine being very, very visible). Denty managed to gain his reputation in a car park (if memory serves) and recently I a lady in my office drove straight across an empty petrol station and hit a wall because her foot "fell off the clutch".

In these situations, it is less likely that the women would claim on their insurance thus skewing the figures.

Incidentally, apparently it was my fault my wife hit my car because I had put it in the wrong place!

If they're fast enough (which they currently aren't) then sure they are, there was "some" talk of it a few seasons ago but nothing came of it as the driver concerned couldn't get the lap times. Could you imagine the furor if F1 didn't allow women to drive simply because they were women?

I would "assume" more men drive because it seems to be a "rite of passage" for younger men to be able to drive. So while they're focus on passing their test, a larger percentage of females i would assume are content on public transport, the taxi's of d-a-d-d-y and of curse form their boyfriends (i'm guessing the back seats get a lot more wear this way though). In addition looking at my friends and their partners who both drive in all cases the men drive when they're traveling together. Quite possibly for the reasons you've mentioned...

Hi mynewt,

Are women allowed to race in F1? I thought that was men only, although I have no reason for believing this except that only men do it!

I wondered myself about the ratio of male to female drivers, but I can't think why more guys than girls would drive - even if more men commute, stay-at-home mothers etc will often still have cars. I suppose without any real figures to back it up, it's all conjecture.

My conjecture is (and my uni feminist philosophy lecturer would kill me for this): generally* speaking, men have better spatial awareness and will generally have greater driving skill. I also think men tend to enjoy driving more.

However, I also think men are more likely to deliberatly drive badly, ie to speed, to take risks, to cut up and undertake - and this is the reason they are more likely to crash. Opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not neccessarily reflect moneysupermarket.com's opinions :)

Skywalker... There aren't words! CMK, consider yourself coldly ignored! :p

Felicity

*These are generalisations I believe are commonly true. I absolutely understand that there are many people who do not conform to this.

Felicity King-Evans - Are women safer on the road than men?

Felicity - Don't forget about poor old, "Scrappy" up in that great scrapyard in the sky, with all those nasty entities chasing him with their gas axes trying to cut him up.???

: -- )

joining Skywalker for a slurp.

Quite clearly men are better drivers - they have longer legs to reach the pedals, and women have small feet, so they can stand closer to the kitchen sink!

And on that note I am off to seek sanctuary in the nearest men only safe house!

The arguement is too vague to give a definitive answer. If you look into the world of motor sports where you have to be supremely qualified and experinced take Formula 1 there aren't any female drivers at all or if you look to the American Nascar and IRL leagues you'll see that there have been female drivers *BUT* they've finished and ranked poorly in relation to male drivers. Looking at it from that point of view you'd have to say women make rather poor drivers. (don't tear my head off just yet).

You could also look at the arguement from a biological point of view in rather loose general terms men are far more agressive, have numerous predatory instincts and have a higher disposition to taking risks. As such men are for more likely to put themselves in a "precarious position" and as a result be involved in/cause accidents than women who similiarily speaking are more likely to take a more cautious approach to things. Although there is a particularly valid arguement that been "too safe" can actually be more dangerous than being "too carefree" -- all rather depandant on the circumstances. So from this point of view perhaps men are the greater risk

Finally offering a different spanner to throw into the mix, your answers will alo depend very much on the demographic of the people you poll. As you began to elude to 18 year old boys are still maturing, still little boys with new toys (in general terms) whereas girls have usually matured by this stage and are just interested in getting from A to B. (i'm sure we cna find numerous examples that will buck this generalisation however). It may also be that there are just more male driver's than female driver's which would mean more accident's involving male drivers.

Of course without femal drivers, my stand-up routine would be rather dull and unintersting. (this does remind me of a rather colourful joke, comapring a women's parking ability with "another" activity).

(can prroceed to tear my head of now if you wish :D)

Are women safer on the road than men?

Well, moneysupermarket.com research shows that insurers certainly think so. They price according to risk and men pay 71% more than women on average.

Of course, this varies according to age - 18-year-old boys will pay more than £1,000 more a year than girls.

Read my article 'Why women win with car insurance' for a table showing a more thorough breakdown of the difference in premiums.

What does this mean? Are women safer on the roads or do men simply claim more? Could it be that there is no difference in actual driving skill but that men take more risks on the road? What do you think?

(I know, I know. Back half a day and I'm already probably fueling forum wrath! Any references to my own recent thread about motor accidents will be coldly ignored!)