You may have heard people crack those old, worn out jokes about women being poor drivers and men being superior. If so, you should know that the statistics massively prove the jokes wrong.
For instance, did you know that men get into fatal car accidents not just more often than women, but about twice as often?
So, knowing that men are statistically far worse drivers in this sense, your next question may be obvious: why?
There are a lot of reasons. One of the major ones is that men drive under the influence way more often. This isn’t to say women don’t do it as well, but around 14 percent of women in fatal accidents are drunk. That’s true for about 24 percent of men, a notable gap.
You may be thinking that men are simply behind the wheel more. Maybe you’re a married man, for example, and your wife has you drive every time you’re in the car together; maybe you’re a married woman, and you have your husband drive.
That does check out. In a given year, men tend to log about 15,000 miles, while women only log about 10,000.
That said, the statistics have been adjusted to compensate. When it’s noted that men are in twice as many fatal wrecks, that’s based on the amount of wrecks on a per-mile basis. That means men actually get in more than twice as many fatal accidents overall, but their being on the road more brings the per-mile average down a bit.
If you’re injured in a car accident or a loved one is killed, no matter the gender of the driver who caused it, be sure you know your legal rights.
Source: Jalopnik, “Why Men Get Into Twice As Many Fatal Car Accidents As Women,” Nicole Conlan, accessed Jan. 12, 2018
