Why You'd Rather Ride With A Woman Than A Man
The New York Times' Freakonomics blog reports:Last post, I passed on some data showing that women are somewhat more likely than men to be involved in car accidents on a per mile driven basis. But men are far more likely (by between 50 and 100 percent) to be in crashes involving loss of life. Why are men’s crashes so much more tragic? An interesting summary of the research from the Social Issues Research Centre provides some ideas.
The male propensity to ignore traffic laws
A number of studies have shown that men are more likely to violate the rules of the road. Jennifer Schwartz reported that in 2004 more than four times more men than women were arrested for drunk driving. Even given that men drive more, that’s an extremely lopsided rate.
Fran H. Norris, B. Alex Matthews and Jasmin K. Riad have found that men are less likely to obey other traffic laws. D. Parker and S.G. Stradling found that men are much more likely to run red lights, tailgate, and race other drivers, as well as drive drunk.
A major reason for this, discovered by researcher Dana Yagil, appears to be that women tend to view traffic laws as just and necessary, and will obey them even when safety is not a factor. Men tend to be more skeptical, and are thus more likely to view road rules as “optional....
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