Confirmed! Man at the wheel, constant danger

Several international studies confirm that men suffer more and worse road accidents than women.

Woman at the wheel, constant danger? This sexist saying is not only completely untrue, but it should also be replaced by another one that goes: ´man at the wheel, constant danger`, or at least that is what several international studies analysed by the DGT seem to suggest. These reports claim that men suffer more accidents than women and that the fatality rate among men is also higher than among women.

During the “Citizen Meetings on Mobility” held at Bilbao City Council a few weeks ago, the results of the studies we have mentioned above were presented. According to Francisco Paz, mobility and training manager at Seguridad Vial, 77% of drivers killed on the road last year were men. Another conclusive finding of this study is that 90% of drivers who have lost points from their licence over the last ten years have been men, a very significant figure if we consider that 41% of all drivers in Spain are women.

According to Paz, men are more than twice as likely to die at the wheel as women. In addition, accidents involving male drivers tend to be more serious and costly.

Women are more responsible behind the wheel

According to the European Sartre report, a study carried out across 19 countries, women are more demanding and responsible when driving a vehicle than men. Only 4.72% of women killed on Spanish roads had consumed alcohol or drugs, according to data from the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the ideal pairing in a vehicle is a woman as the driver and a man as the front-seat passenger.

On the other hand, women make more lapses when it comes to renewing their driving licence or passing the MOT/ITV inspection than men do. In addition, they commit more offences by using a mobile phone while driving.

Despite the findings of these reports, Francisco Paz maintains that road fatalities are not a matter of gender but of road safety training and social roles, the latter being more pronounced in men and specifically in certain groups of people and age brackets.