CAR ACCIDENT: Research Finds Accidents involving Women More Likely than Men

June 15, 2011

Results from a study done by traffic accident researchers show that women are more susceptible to a driving accident with another woman than with a man.

Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute and Brandon Schoettle, two of the authors of the study, said they wanted to determine the influence of gender in the prevalence of vehicular accidents.

The study was done using thousands of traffic accident data over a 20-year period, and was published in the Traffic Injury Prevention journal.

According to reports, the results were described to be astounding since the resulting values for men, who drive about 60 percent of the time, are lower than their expected values.

Different types of accidents were included as variables in the study, including sideswiping, turning in front of a vehicle, and head-on collisions.

Percentages for each type of accident rise to significant values whenever both vehicles considered are driven by a woman. A woman driver sideswiping another car driven by another woman is 52 percent more likely in contrast to the expected value of 15.8 percent, the study reports.

The probability of pedestrian accidents involving two women, one as a driver and another as a pedestrian, was also raised by 50 from the expected value of 17 percent.

For men, meanwhile, the values for sideswiping notched only to 22 percent below the expected 36.2 percent. Accidents involving the two sexes reached expected values.

The study does not claim that men are better drivers, however. Sivak said that he does not know why females are overrepresented in accidents involving two women.

The study still needs further clarification which may be impossible, he said.