Those of us who are old enough to remember sitcoms from generations past likely remember many different jokes about those women drivers who caused all of the problems that people encountered on the road. Many of them were humorous depending on how they were delivered, but many people also tended to think that these assertions were true. That was somewhat unfortunate, as women were forced to carry around a bad reputation for years until some decided to see for themselves just how valid this assumption was. That's what was just done in New Zealand, and the results of a study performed there will hopefully put this myth to rest. Researchers at Quality Planning, an analytics company that validates policyholder information for auto insurers in New Zealand, took a long look at different traffic citations that were common and then reviewed how many times men were cited versus women. That initial step revealed that men are more likely to break traffic laws than women and that based on the traffic laws that they broke men also tended to make the roads more dangerous than women did. Perhaps the most startling difference in terms of the traffic violations committed was that men were 3.41 times more likely to be cited for reckless driving than women.
Clearly, reckless driving involves at least a light disregard for the safety of others on the road at that time, and such behavior is highly likely to cause serious car accidents that can lead to debilitating injuries and ultimately to fatalities. This was one of the key findings in the study. Aside from the reckless driving statistic, the study also found that when one just looks at the raw numbers regarding car accidents, they stack up relatively evenly between the genders. However, additional analysis revealed that men tended to be involved in much more serious car accidents over time than women, which seems to fall in line with the finding that men are much more likely to be cited for reckless driving.
Overall, this study was not one that could have actually measured the driving ability of men and then compared it to women. Drivers who are otherwise good behind the wheel can make mistakes, and gender is not important in that regard. However, this notion of women drivers probably needs to go the way of the dodo because it simply is not accurate, at least based on the results of this interesting research in New Zealand. When someone is injured in a car accident that was caused by someone else, that injured person will not care about the other driver's gender. Neither will the law if that injured person files a Nevada personal injury lawsuit.
If you or someone you love has been injured in a crash, contact the Las Vegas accident lawyers at High Stakes Injury Law today to schedule a free initial consultation.