What happens when you give a hillbilly a Lamborghini?

[Rupert]

The major factor to that is actually something very simple, women drive alot less than men.  When you take into account miles driven, women get into more accidents per mile, and more accidents that result in injury.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/03/10/who-drives-better-men-or-women/

The problem is that men get into more serious fatal accidents.  This is most likely due to the fact our superior driving skill is offset by our aggressiveness and tendency to do stupid shit like reckless driving, and DUI much much much more than women.

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/men-vs--women--who-are-safer-drivers-.html

Also we are much more likely to stupid stuff more than women during our teen years than the girls.


Honestly that stuff pretty much goes right in line with my experience.  I'd say I'm a much more accomplished driver than my girlfriend.  She barely drives at all but has managed to grind her family car into all kinds of stuff (she's asian AND female).  Sitting in the car with her would be hilarious if I wasn't worried out of my mind.  On the other hand she's never gotten almost ticketed for reckless driving in the z06 for doing about 105 in a 25 trying to beat her buddies back from the movies going the longer backrounds route.  Nor has she ever felt the urge to try tp top out her car on the highway at night, or tried to drift a corner, or tried a burn out, or tried to fit 2 buddies in the trunk unrestrained, etc etc.

I think the data shows we men manage to avoid more accidents then women, but when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong, because we might be good at driving, but we are angry idiots more often.

I think this quote from the survey says everything.

"Men are more likely than women to be involved in serious accidents ? that is, men experience more head-on collisions, roll-overs, loss-of-control crashes and collisions involving pedestrians, cyclists or animals whereas women are more likely than men to collide with stationary objects or reverse into other cars."

So we are involved in the awesome spectacular crashes while women get involved in embarassing facepalm accidents and well, drive like the women driver stereotype.

Scientific footage below of women drivers in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wT7zM8XgXQ

That's the first credible anything I've seen on the subject, and I don't think either of those links strongly support the assertion that women are bad drivers. First of all, it's very generalized. Second, the accident rates (Freakonomics) are not hugely different, and they even go on to discuss some possibly significant sources of error (e.g. men drive on safer freeways more, men may drive at night more). My guess is that the 5.1 and 5.7 accidents/Mmile numbers are within a standard deviation of each other when you consider other sources of error (e.g. what goes unreported, accident causes, at-fault-ness). The Yahoo link paints an even nicer picture of women and accidents.

The only thing I see that lends any real support to the women can't drive assertion is the types of accidents, but it's still barely more than anecdotal without a statistical analysis.

The bottom line, IMO, is that no one should be nervous getting into a car with someone just because they're female.

[565]

That's the first credible anything I've seen on the subject, and I don't think either of those links strongly support the assertion that women are bad drivers. First of all, it's very generalized. Second, the accident rates (Freakonomics) are not hugely different, and they even go on to discuss some possibly significant sources of error (e.g. men drive on safer freeways more, men may drive at night more). My guess is that the 5.1 and 5.7 accidents/Mmile numbers are within a standard deviation of each other when you consider other sources of error (e.g. what goes unreported, accident causes, at-fault-ness). The Yahoo link paints an even nicer picture of women and accidents.

The only thing I see that lends any real support to the women can't drive assertion is the types of accidents, but it's still barely more than anecdotal without a statistical analysis.

The bottom line, IMO, is that no one should be nervous getting into a car with someone just because they're female.

The actual article itself is actually really detailed with age break down and what not, shame you guys don't have pub med to access it.  When broken down by age, teenage boys crash more than teenage girls, they are tied around age 35, and then women massively and significantly take off in accidents after age 35.  The data is indeed significant and stands up to statistic scrutiny.

Plus you are always going to have possible biases either way in any study, they discussed possible ones on both sides both in favor of men and in favor of women, with highways being in favor of men and lack of night driving in favor of women. 

Plus the type of accidents aren't anecdotal at all.  It is from the insurance claim data from AAMI one of the largest insurance companies in Australia.

http://www.aami.com.au/company-information/news-centre/press-releases/men-outperform-women-in-driver-aggression-stakes-study



"While men and women comprised an equal share of AAMI insurance claims in 2007 (51 per cent of claims were from men compared to 49 per cent from women), our review of the claims from each sex shows men were more likely to lodge claims for damage caused at high speeds," Mr Sopinski said.

"For example, 63 per cent of claims where 'loss of control' was the reason for the accident came from men, compared to just 37 per cent from women. And 71 per cent of claims where the vehicle rolled over were from men, compared to just 29 per cent of rollovers from women.

"On the other hand, women were slightly more likely than men to lodge claims for damage caused by colliding with a stationary object - 52 per cent of claims for hitting a pole, tree, fence or building were from women compared to 48 per cent from men."

Women were more likely than men to hit a parked car (56 per cent versus 44 per cent), and also more likely to collide with pedestrians and cyclists (53 per cent versus 47 per cent).

[Laconian]

Did they investigate the attractive force between Buicks and farmer's markets? Seriously, there seems to be a 9/11 scale tragedy every year, but nobody has the stones to talk about it!

[Rupert]

The actual article itself is actually really detailed with age break down and what not, shame you guys don't have pub med to access it.  When broken down by age, teenage boys crash more than teenage girls, they are tied around age 35, and then women massively and significantly take off in accidents after age 35.  The data is indeed significant and stands up to statistic scrutiny.

Plus you are always going to have possible biases either way in any study, they discussed possible ones on both sides both in favor of men and in favor of women, with highways being in favor of men and lack of night driving in favor of women. 

Plus the type of accidents aren't anecdotal at all.  It is from the insurance claim data from AAMI one of the largest insurance companies in Australia.

http://www.aami.com.au/company-information/news-centre/press-releases/men-outperform-women-in-driver-aggression-stakes-study



"While men and women comprised an equal share of AAMI insurance claims in 2007 (51 per cent of claims were from men compared to 49 per cent from women), our review of the claims from each sex shows men were more likely to lodge claims for damage caused at high speeds," Mr Sopinski said.

"For example, 63 per cent of claims where 'loss of control' was the reason for the accident came from men, compared to just 37 per cent from women. And 71 per cent of claims where the vehicle rolled over were from men, compared to just 29 per cent of rollovers from women.

"On the other hand, women were slightly more likely than men to lodge claims for damage caused by colliding with a stationary object - 52 per cent of claims for hitting a pole, tree, fence or building were from women compared to 48 per cent from men."

Women were more likely than men to hit a parked car (56 per cent versus 44 per cent), and also more likely to collide with pedestrians and cyclists (53 per cent versus 47 per cent).

I assumed there was statistical analyses for the accident rate and such. What is the standard deviation on the 5.1 and 5.7 numbers? I was more concerned with testing the significance of the types of accidents. I believe that the data presented is accurate enough, but are we sure it's saying that women are more distracted, more nervous, less aware, etc.? In other words, what other reasons might there be for the difference in accident types among the sexes?

IMO, those particular sources of error (e.g. night driving and freeway driving) are potentially pretty big.

Also, my general point, that no one should be nervous getting into a car with someone just because they're female, is still correct.

[Tave]

The major factor to that is actually something very simple, women drive alot less than men.  When you take into account miles driven, women get into more accidents per mile, and more accidents that result in injury.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/03/10/who-drives-better-men-or-women/

The problem is that men get into more serious fatal accidents.  This is most likely due to the fact our superior driving skill is offset by our aggressiveness and tendency to do stupid shit like reckless driving, and DUI much much much more than women.

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/men-vs--women--who-are-safer-drivers-.html

Also we are much more likely to stupid stuff more than women during our teen years than the girls.


Honestly that stuff pretty much goes right in line with my experience.  I'd say I'm a much more accomplished driver than my girlfriend.  She barely drives at all but has managed to grind her family car into all kinds of stuff (she's asian AND female).  Sitting in the car with her would be hilarious if I wasn't worried out of my mind.  On the other hand she's never gotten almost ticketed for reckless driving in the z06 for doing about 105 in a 25 trying to beat her buddies back from the movies going the longer backrounds route.  Nor has she ever felt the urge to try tp top out her car on the highway at night, or tried to drift a corner, or tried a burn out, or tried to fit 2 buddies in the trunk unrestrained, etc etc.

I think the data shows we men manage to avoid more accidents then women, but when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong, because we might be good at driving, but we are angry idiots more often.

I think this quote from the survey says everything.

"Men are more likely than women to be involved in serious accidents ? that is, men experience more head-on collisions, roll-overs, loss-of-control crashes and collisions involving pedestrians, cyclists or animals whereas women are more likely than men to collide with stationary objects or reverse into other cars."

So we are involved in the awesome spectacular crashes while women get involved in embarassing facepalm accidents and well, drive like the women driver stereotype.

Scientific footage below of women drivers in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wT7zM8XgXQ

You can have all the "skill" in the world, but if you drive reckless in practice and cause fatal accidents, you're a shitty driver.

[Rupert]

Aye.

I don't know what standards you're trying to apply, but you don't need to be into cars to be a good driver, or into fast driving. You just need to control the car fully, be aware of what's going on, react in the right way, be courteous-ish, know the rules (following them is optional sometimes), etc.

[Madman]

Did they investigate the attractive force between Buicks and farmer's markets? Seriously, there seems to be a 9/11 scale tragedy every year, but nobody has the stones to talk about it!

I raised the subject earlier this year.

http://www.carspin.net/forums/index.php?topic=25063.0