Is there a correlation between road accidents and the gender and age of the drivers involved?

Dr Rozmi Ismail (photo), a Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia researcher specialising in driver psychology, said statistics from an ongoing study indicate that men, especially younger ones, are more likely than women to cause accidents by wilful violation of traffic laws.

Women are unwittingly involved in mishaps because they make more mistakes in judgment than men, said Rozmi, whose research team interviewed 101 male and 99 female drivers in Selangor.

Most of the men admitted to a significantly higher frequency of wilfully violating traffic laws, such as speeding, beating the red light, making illegal U-turns and breaching double-lines.

More women conceded such mistakes as failing to look before turning or switching lanes, he said.

"Our findings are in line with studies done in other countries. Although we have yet to complete the analysis of another 500 responses, results so far have a correlation with findings from the first group of 200 respondents," said Rozmi.

Main differences

Although close to half (48 percent) said they had been involved in at least one accident, a higher percentage (35 percent) of them comprised men, against 14 percent of the women.

Of those who have never before been involved in an accident, the majority were women (36 percent). Only 15 percent of the men could make the same claim.

The good news lies in the finding that, with maturity, men report a declining tendency to commit social aberrations and to violate norms through speeding or aggressive driving. Men are most likely to violate traffic rules between the ages of 17 and 24.

Women showed a constant rate of errors at all ages except above 50 years, when there is a higher tendency of lapses in judgement.

Optimism factor

Explaining the significance of the studies, Rozmi said these make a link between driving skills or experience and the number of kilometres covered per year.

So why is it that men, even those involved in prior accidents, are more prone to mishaps despite their apparent edge over women in terms of driving hours and skills?

"Among three categories of male drivers involved in accidents, researchers had found that those with the highest number of traffic violations are also those who have been involved in a high number of accidents," said Rozmi.

Some of the more popular reasons for this are taken from the 'driver optimism bias' theory.

"Drivers are generally optimistic and believe that accidents will happen only to others and not themselves.

"More men, in particular, hold this view. Plus, they see themselves as being more skilled and experienced (than women) in controlling a car, leading them to indulge more often in dangerous and high-risk behaviour."

Women more responsible

Generally, too, men display more aggressive and non-conformist behaviour than women. Women tend to abide by rules and are more fearful of the consequences of violations, Rozmi said.

"Women are more prone to seeing traffic laws as important and possess a higher sense of responsibility."

Research done in the 1990s in cognitive function theory have connected negligence and mistakes to the failure to adequately process information received through the senses.

This affects the ability to react in appropriate manner and could explain why women may be more prone to making mistakes while driving, said Rozmi.

"According to a study conducted in 1977 and replicated by another in 1992 , women drivers are naturally more prone to mistakes because of errors of perception and because they have a weaker memory than men," he added.

Perks for good driving