DRIVING TEST: Who Drives Better - Men Or Women?

Worse drivers: Males or females?

Which group causes more accidents, drives drunk more often and is responsible for more traffic deaths? Take a look at government and auto insurance statistics.

Old stereotypes peg women as dangerous drivers, but statistics show the reality: When it comes to driving, guys are much more naughty. And insurance rates reflect that.

We can't say that all males are reckless when they drive. Nor can we say that all females are safe drivers. But numerous studies show that males are more likely than females to throw caution to the wind when on the road.

"Maybe the testosterone makes them more aggressive," jokes Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. "But the fact is, the industry doesn't go by whether you have higher testosterone. It goes by numbers, and the numbers seem to support that men are generally more reckless than women."

Scofflaws

Sorry, boys, but statistics show that you break traffic laws more often than females.

Quality Planning, a company that validates policyholder information for auto insurers, conducted a study that concluded males are at least 50% more likely to be cited for reckless driving, seat belt violations, speeding, failure to yield and stop sign/signal violations. To be more specific, the company analyzed an entire year of policyholder information in 2007 and found that males were cited for reckless driving 3.41 times as often as females.

Traffic violations:

Violations	Violation ratio, males vs. females
Reckless driving	3.41-to-1
DUI	3.09-to-1
Seat belt violations	3.08-to-1
Speeding	1.75-to-1
Failure to yield	1.54-to-1
Stop sign/signal violations	1.53-to-1

"We were not surprised to see that men have slightly more -- about plus 5% -- violations that result in accidents than women," says Raj Bhat, the president of Quality Planning. "And because men are also more likely to violate laws for speeding, passing and yielding, the resulting accidents caused by men lead to more-expensive (insurance) claims than those caused by women."

The study also found that female drivers were about 27% less likely to be found at fault when involved in an accident.