Who's The Safest Driver: Men Or Women?

Men or Women – Who’s the Safest Driver?

Who is safer behind the wheels – men or women? It is an age-old debate that never ends. Everyone has their own opinion, so it is better to dig into the statistics. Interestingly, women usually win in every scenario.

Lower car insurance for women

While the EU Gender Directive clearly says insurers must not equate the premium on a person’s sex, the data shows women still pay lower car insurance than men.  

According to confused.com car insurance price index (Q3 2019), females disbursed approximately £84 lower than men for their premium.

The question is why the insurers allow women to pay less when the EU directive asks them to treat every driver equally. The reason is clear; they drive carefully.

Women are less likely to pass a driving test but are safer once on the road

According to another report available here, the surveyor studied variations in statistics for men and women in the following fields:

• Driving test pass rates

• Driving violations

• Car insurance claims

• Annual mileage

Driving test pass rates

In 2018, 53% of women and 47% of males took their first driving test. The results were astonishing for women who mostly failed - 31% compared to 24% men.

Driving violations

But what happens when ladies get their driving licence and hit the road. It is where things look very bleak for men. Of over half a million driving violations committed in England and Wales in 2018, men caused a massive 79% of them. It is about four times more than females did.

In reality, men remained on the wrong side of the law in most violation categories. Their speeding habit outnumbered women by more than 3:1, with double as many males held driving without tax and thrice as many with no insurance coverage. The statistics also tell that the ratio of male vs. women in drunk driving was 5:1. 

Car insurance claims

We all know how claims can affect your premium; the more they are, the higher you pay. Here, too, male drivers take the lead, with 67% of car insurance claims made in 2018 against only 33% created by women.

Interestingly, male motorists also made double as many stealing claims as females. Moreover, males made false claims two times more than women did.

Besides, even the average claim disbursement for male drivers in 2018 was £5,577, which is £427 extra than for female drivers.

What about mileage?

Some people may argue that since men drive more than their opposite gender, they tend to make more violations, hence more claims. However, in reality, there is very little variation between male and female drivers in terms of spending time behind the wheels.  

The average yearly mileage for men is 6,874 miles, which is under 1% in excess of women, at 6,807 miles.

Seeing all the statistics, we can safely say that though women are less expected to pass their driving examination, they drive more safely and responsibly than their opposite gender, on average.

Unhealthy habits behind the wheel

Research has also found male motorists committing more driving faux pas than female drivers do.

The males are 25% more expected to smoke or vape behind the wheels than females, and 33% more predicted to jump a red light.

Somewhat upsetting, male motorists are 50% more certainly to drive without a seat belt.

That said, two things never change for both men and women drivers. They both equally like to eat at the wheel and drive barefooted.

Here are ten unhealthy driver habits (ratio of 2,000 drivers questioned, evenly divided between men and women)