Men+vs+Women+Drivers

Let me at first say that my comment concerning women drivers was purely a joke and in good fun to give the class some laughter. That being said, when this project was assigned to me, I had my own preconceived notions concerning the difference between men and women drivers. As I stated in class, I am a motorcoach driver for Dattco. I am routinely in and around the New England area, driving on an average of 50,000 miles per year. Here are my own personal observations and perhaps stereotypes:
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Cars that are generally drifting in and out of their lane with what seems little to no concept of spatial orientation of their car, variable speeds vice a constant, and lane changes that make little sense, or the cars you see on the road where you ask yourself, "What is this person doing!?!?!?!" These drivers typically have been women drivers, most of them distracted in some way. Most distractions I see all too often are talking on the cell phone or putting on makeup in their vanity mirror. They are not putting 100% of their focus on the road or their surroundings.

Cars driving at excessive speeds, erratic and confrontational to other drivers, exhibiting road rage or making extreme maneuvers tend to be men drivers. They portray themselves as kings of the road, and if anyone wrongs them, they are there to teach you a lesson. These drivers are aggressive in nature, and is directly proportional to the AGE of the driver. Young adults tend to take more risks. This risk taking seems to diminish with age. I honestly did not know the answer I would find when I started my research, so I think my mindset was as unbiased as possible.
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The main bullet I found common from a variety of websites is that if you look at the total number of car crashes in one year, there are more male deaths. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said that in 2006, 6,349 women drivers were killed in crashes, while 15,138 men died.

Michael Manser, director of the University of Minnesota’s Human FIRST program studies human behavior behind the wheels of vehicles. "On a basic level women have the same skills and the same limitations. How they're implemented in the real world probably differs between men and women," according to Manser. Researchers have found men more likely to speed and more likely to drink before they drive. "Risk-taking behaviors or propensity for those behaviors in males is greater than for females why that is, on a basic level, on a psychology level, I don't know," said Manser. However, Manser overlooked on major factor. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) states that women only account for 30% of the 1.5 trillion miles traveled by passenger cars per year. NHTSA data suggests that: (These numbers are from data from 1999)
 * If only MEN drove
 * Traffic accidents would decrease by 22%
 * 9,159 lives would be saved each year
 * 330,000 lives would be saved over the next 30 years
 * We would save $44 Billion in crash repair costs
 * If only WOMEN drove
 * There would be 23,879 MORE traffic fatalities per year
 * 7,674 MORE women would be killed each year

(Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database from 2000)

Bear in mind, NHTSA and FARS are only looking at PASSENGER car accidents, not trucks or motorcycles or any combination of. Also, this data is only looking at accidents with fatalities. Not all accidents are fatal. The study also does not take into account the demographical region these accidents occurred in. Are they in metropolitan areas or out in the country? What were the factors that lead to these vehicle accidents? This also ignores age. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found the greatest gender difference to be in adults age 20 to 24. Men in that group had a death rate of 31.6 per 100,000 people. The female death rate was 12.0 per 100,000 people. So I believe this data is actually skewed to make the data show women are worse drivers. AAA conducted their own research using FARS data to compare car crashes and car/truck crashes to identify the unsafe driving actions and conditions that can lead to an accident. Although it didn’t specifically outline men versus women factors, it did outline some considering factors. The most common factors that lead to accidents were: failing to keep in lane, failing to yield right of way, driving too fast for the conditions or the posted speed limit, and failing to obey traffic control devices. Their research outlined 4 important factors: I found this data interesting because my prejudices attribute failing to keep in lane, failure to obey traffic devices and failure to yield right of way as actions more common by women from my own experiences and observations. This data also leads me to believe that the NHTSA data is or could be skewed if they are ignoring factors considered in the cause of an accident, or more importantly**__, who was at fault.__** None of the data I found, nor could I find any, made the connection of who were at fault versus men/women drivers. Considering all the data I found, I found it all to be biased to prove the agenda of what each group was looking for. The one that seemed to have the most neutral position was Manser who was looking through empirical data, but I still found fault in his. So, if you’ve read this entire article, my answer is… THERE IS NO ANSWER to prove without a doubt who is a better driver. There are too many contributing factors and driving differences with age to make a formidable statement. Until then, the jokes shall continue to circulate our population.
 * Drowsy or fatigued driving and following improperly were more likely to be reported for male than female car drivers.
 * Car drivers in crashes in which their vision was obstructed tended to be older than the other drivers.
 * Car drivers who were drowsy/fatigued were likely to be younger than other drivers.
 * Younger truck drivers were more likely than older truck drivers to follow improperly, speed, and use alcohol or drugs.
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I also found this very compelling video evidence which seems to come for a reputable source... [|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygtBxhFc24A__]
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