Are Women Bad Drivers?

According to scientific research conducted in 2002, men are worse!  Here's a quick analysis of that research from John Stossel:
Women have a bad reputation when it comes to driving... But researchers with the Social Issues Resource Center beg to differ. Their 2002 report analyzed a stack of studies on male and female driving differences and came to a bold conclusion: "In all studies and analyses, without exception, men have been shown to have a higher rate of crashes than women." 
Men, the report claims, drive faster than women and have less regard for traffic laws: They speed, they drive drunk, run stop signs, and therefore crash twice as often as women do. In the US, men cause 71% of all road fatalities, a figure that's remained constant since 1975. 
But don't men drive many more miles than women do?  Wouldn't that account for some of the difference? It's true that males account for 62% of all miles driven, vs. 38% for females, but even after miles are clocked and driving hours are factored in, men still get in way more fatal accidents [about 40% more].
So maybe it's time to give the ladies a break. :)


  1. I think this research is insufficient: I am not sure that accidents are the best indicator of bad driving. I think any time i've witnessed people yell at women drivers it has been because of poor driving etiquette or sloppy/absentminded/emotional driving. Not that either of those can't cause accidents. But I think there is more to be said.

  2. Although the report mentions that men speed and run more stop signs, so that kind of implies "etiquette" in a different way.

    And, does it matter how "bad" a driver is if they don't get into accidents or hurt anyone?

    But I do understand your point. I wonder how women and men compare in non-accident driving, too. I guess who gets more traffic tickets?

  3. Men get more tickets: http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=788126

    Plus, when women get pulled over, they are likely to get issued a ticket:

    92.3% of women get ticketed after getting pulled over, as opposed to 90.3%. And men still get more tickets because they get pulled over about twice as often.

    Although, then there are questions from those things, too:
    -Do more men get pulled over/are men profiled by police?
    -What about women who drive slower or are distracted, but don't break the law? Isn't that a sign of "bad driving"?

    If anyone knows about any research on this, please sign my guestbook!

    (regardless, personally, annoying drivers are... well, annoying... but I prefer that to getting into accidents!)