People say, women drive more dangerously compared to men. Don’t follow a lady driver as you would not know where would she turn next, right or left.
But that is not right always. A new study suggests that men pose more risk to other road users than woman do and they are more likely to drive more dangerous vehicles.
The study published in journal Injury Prevention and based on official data in England from 2005 to 2015 suggests that greater gender equity in road transport jobs, overall, might help lessen these risks.
The researchers found that cars and taxis were associated with most (two-thirds) of fatalities to other road users. Lorries were associated with one in six deaths to other road users. Motorbikes also put other road users at high risk. Each km driven was associated with around 2.5 times more deaths to other parties than was each km driven in a car.
It was also found that cycling was relatively safe for others: it was associated with fewer deaths to other parties per km ridden than all the other types of transport, with just one other death per billion km cycled.
The research concluded men posed a significantly higher risk to other road users for five of the six vehicle types studied. For cars and vans, the risk posed by male drivers was double that posed by women per km driven, rising to four times higher for lorry drivers, and more than 10 times higher for motorbike riders.
The researchers conclude: “We suggest policy-makers consider policies to increase gender balance in occupations that substantially involve driving, given the greater likelihood that other road users will be killed if men rather than women are driving or riding.”
