SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy

Arguments about the superior sex usually always start off as a friendly conversation but very often escalate to a heated debate very quickly. Men and women love to try to prove that they’re better and do so in almost every category possible. Arguments vary from who’s smarter all the way to who can make a better sandwich. One topic that always seems to be brought up is who’s the better driver, males or females? Most women will argue that men drive way to aggressively while most men say women drive too cautiously. One race has to be superior but which one is it?

Driving ability can be determined by a couple simple things. One of the things that can be looked at is who gets into more accidents? For this category woman have the upper hand, by a land slide too. In the year of 2013, men were responsible for 71% of total motor vehicle deaths compared 29% for women.  This is consistent throughout the years too as men have been involved in more motor vehicle deaths dating back to 1975 (www.iihs.org). These statistics can be connected to the aggressive nature that is usually described for mens driving habitats.

The next set of data to be looked at is who receives more traffic tickets. Traffic tickets are a great way to gauge who is following the rules of the road. Men also dominate this category, and not in the good way. Whether it’s reckless driving (3.41 to 1 ratio), DUI (3.09 to 1 ratio), or speeding tickets(1.75 to 1 ratio) men have a higher rate in every category (www.statisticbrain.com). This data shows that women drive more cautiously and have higher respect for traffic laws.

The last set of data to look at is cell phone use while driving. Picking up the phone while driving imposes a huge threat on the road and is proven over and over again to be a huge distraction to the driver. In a study done by The US Department of Transportation, it shows that women do indeed pick up the phone more frequently then men do. From this study we can conclude that men do a better job of staying concentrated on the road and ignoring distractions.

Looking at accident causalities and traffic violations it appears that women are the clear cut winners in this debate; however there is one major flaw in this data. The flaw of those data sets is that they don’t take into consideration time spent on the road. According to a study done by Arbitron, men drive on average 136 more miles weekly than women with a ratio of roughly 1.57:1. By spending that much more time in cars men have much higher exposure to accidents than women do. That exposure could be a main reason why men appear to be worse drivers in those statistics.

Taking all of this date in and adding the exposure factor it’s hard to make a clear cut decision but I do believe one is superior to the other. As a male it pains me to say this but from these data sets I deem females as the superior drivers. Men do spend much more time on the road but not enough time to overcome the massive amounts of car accidents and traffic violations they receive compared to women. So next time you’re set to take a long driving trip, maybe the girl in the car should drive.

Images

http://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_advice_600/669_arguing-in-a-relationship.html

http://classroomclipart.com/clipart-view/Clipart/Safety/talking_on_cell_phone_while_driving_jpg.htm

Bibliography

“General Statistics.” Highway Safety Research and Communications. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

“Male and Female Driving Statistics.” Statistic Brain, 25 Aug. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

Tacinelli, Glen. “The National In-Car Study.” Arbitron, 2003. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

Utter, Dennis. “Passenger Vehicle Driver Cell Phone Use.” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1 July 2001. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.