Saturday, January 29, 2022

Women drivers!

It is a great advance of respect for women that the idea of the woman driver being a menace on wheels has disappeared into the comedy past. Whereas "women drivers" was a popular punchline up to and through the seventies -- one that seemed so permanent that it was the focus of a Jetsons episode -- the idea that women are naturally lousy drivers has been banished at last. 

Of course some women are lousy drivers. As are some men are. Some women are really good drivers.  

Purty, too!

I suspect it was the insurance companies that cured us of this comic misconception. Statistics are what they are, and when money is on the line, they are usually trustworthy. When it became well known that young men had to pay more for car insurance than young women because the boys were a higher risk, that seemed to stop the jokes. As the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's Highway Loss Data Institute puts it, "Many more men than women die each year in motor vehicle crashes. Men typically drive more miles than women and are more likely to engage in risky driving practices, including not using safety belts, driving while impaired by alcohol, and speeding. Crashes involving male drivers often are more severe than those involving female drivers."

But even this is only part of the story. As it turns out, for example, it's only young men who suck more at driving, just the kind of "hold my beer" guys we'd expect to exhibit the least safe behavior. More from the IIHS: "The number of driver fatal crash involvements per 100 million miles driven in 2016-17 was 63 percent higher for males (2.1 per 100 million miles traveled) than for females (1.3 per 100 million miles traveled). Rates were substantially higher for males than for females ages 16-29, but were only slightly higher for ages 30 and older. The sex difference was largest among drivers ages 20-29." Furthermore, "For nearly every year from 1975 to 2019, the number of male crash deaths was more than twice the number of female crash deaths, but the gap has narrowed. From 1975 to 2019, male crash deaths declined by 22 percent and female crash deaths declined by 12 percent."

Possibly the female empowerment folk would say that women are naturally better drivers, and that's because they value life more than those brutal and thuggish men. Conversely, male supporters (har har) could counter that women have a timidity that makes them safer but makes discoveries and advances less likely. Then the women blame the men for that and everyone starts screaming again. 

The main reason I mention this is that my anecdotal evidence says the bad women drivers are getting to be as bad as the bad men and for the same reason -- a feeling of invincibility coupled with ignorance. A couple of doors down from me is a stop sign on a T intersection. Drivers come up the stem of the T and have to stop; they can only go right or left, but cars could be coming from either of those directions. Most commonly they turn right, and because of the rise of the road, the visibility is worse toward their left side. Therefore, a full stop and some caution is required. 

Now: Who blows through the stop sign like it isn't there most, men or women?

My experience is, it's about equal. Same with those speeding down the street. 

One problem with anecdotal evidence is that comparing populations on the street is not the same as looking at a population at large -- who are these people, what are the sex ratios between people going this way or that, etc. But -- anecdotally -- my observations should favor the women, as most of the men I see driving during the day are local contractors, while most of the women are moms shuttling kids. Why are these moms driving as poorly as the plumbers and lawn guys?

Maybe it's because I live in New York, where drivers are fairly lousy on the whole. It is worth noting, though, that in 2011 a study reported that women are more dangerous drivers than men

Women drivers are more likely to be involved in an accident, according to scientists.
Researchers looked at 6.5 million car crashes and found a higher than expected number of accidents between two female drivers.
     They also discovered that women have a tough time negotiating crossroads, T-junctions and slip roads.
     The results are even more surprising given that men spend more time behind the wheel than women. On average, men drive 60 per cent of the time, and women 40 per cent.
     Michael Sivak, of the University of Michigan, said: "The results indicate that in certain crash scenarios, male-to-male crashes tend to be under-represented and female-to-female crashes tend to be over-represented."

Was that well reported in 2011? Not that I recall. 

I just throw it all out there as a question that we all ought to think about. Just obey the stop signs and try to stay somewhere in the orbit of the speed limit, is what I'm saying. At least on my block. I won't say it's because "We Love Our Kids!" the way some neighborhood signs will tell you. Nah, a lot of people here might be indifferent to the kids. We just hate mopping up blood. 

6 comments:

  1. We're on a corner lot. The street out front ends at a berm, with a gravel access road to a water authority tank to the right, and an asphalt road to the next subdivision to the left. There is a stop sign on that road coming out of that subdivision on the corner of our property. Because the only turn one can make at that sign is a right, NOBODY obeys that stop sign - male, female, civilian, not the county cop who lives down there, not the sheriff's deputy who lives down there, not any school bus (full or empty), mail truck, UPS, FedEx. I saw a moving van semi slow down to widen the turn, but that's about it. Most who take that turn are at or above the 25 mph limit (the screeching tires give it away). My joke is the only time anyone here does 25 is in their own driveway. Poor driving and overestimating one's abilities ain't gender-specific - not the 2 real genders or any of the hundreds of mythical ones.

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  2. So what do women and nVidia have in common?

    Neither makes very good drivers.



    Thank you, thank you, I'm here 'til Friday, try the brisket.

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  3. Are people becoming worse drivers because the cars are so safe now? That's another question for the panel!

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  4. I usually say bad driver come in both sexes but they are bad in different ways. To illustrate I say that bad male drivers see other cars as orange cones on an obstacle course. Bad female drivers don't see the cones. I do agree that younger drivers are converging in badness.

    I like "drive like your kids live here". Why are my kids living there? Call the cops!

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  5. From your description, I suspect that familiarity, as it were, may be part of the problem. People who are regularly going over the same route tend to see what they expect to see - If no one has come over the hill to the left the was however many times, then even if they glance in that direction, their eye-brain system won't register something coming over the crest.
    This is also common when changes occur at familiar locations. I was once T-Boned (No injuries, thankfully, just metal damage) at an intersection that had a newly-installed Stop Light. The ramming driver never noticed the light - didn't realize it was there until it was pointed out.
    The same effect is observed when a 4-way crossing goes from stop signs on one of the crossing roads to stops on both crossing roads.

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  6. That's a good point, NH, and probably accounts for more accidents than the numbers relate. Most likely only 1 in 50 times will a car be coming along on the left at the intersection I described, so it wouldn't be expected. But since people drive too fast and you can't see far up that hill, that 1 in 50 could smash right into the driver's door.

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