Road traffic offending, stress, age, and accident history among male and female drivers

Abstract

This paper draws on data gathered during a larger study of driving behaviour to explore possible connections between stress, offending against the traffic laws, and accident rates, and gives particular attention to comparisons between male and female drivers. Data were gathered from 422 drivers by a postal questionnaire, and further measures of stress were obtained during semi-structured interviews with a specially selected subset of 66 of them. Analyses of variance investigated links between offending rates, accident history, and up to seven measures of stress, taking age and gender into account. In the results accident history, although positively related to offending, played little part in links involving stress variables. The principal findings were that (a) stress, both on and off the road, was positively associated with offending among both male and female drivers, and (b) although females overall offended less than males, females experienced more stress than males whatever their level of offending. One possible interpretation of these results is suggested by the feminist literature, which could account for both the higher levels of stress and lower levels of offending found among women drivers. However, there is unlikely to be a clear-cut gender divide in offending-stress relationships, and some small groups of female drivers in the study behaved like male ones. It is suggested that people's driving reflects their lifestyles, and that women drivers' patterns of offending and stress will resemble those of male drivers to the extent that their lives and concerns are similar to men's. It is concluded that this position warrants further research.

Vehicle-related crime and the gender gap

“…More work to explore the gender gap could repay attention, though as noted earlier, women's and men's driving styles are not assumed to be without overlap and a better understanding especially of those women who tend to adopt male driving styles (e.g. Reason et al, 1990;Simon and Corbett, 1996) would also be useful and interesting.…”

“…Indeed, earlier research suggests that some women have distinctive styles. For instance, Reason et al (1990) reported that around 10% of female drivers aged 36 or more were high violators and Simon and Corbett (1996) found that some career women admitted to similar levels of speeding and other road offending as men. In this context too, it is relevant to consider current claims about the emergence of a 'ladette culture' among younger women such that increasing aggression on the road and the adoption of a deviant masculine driving style, including drink-driving, is becoming more evident among them (e.g.…”

Proactive Listening to a Training Commentary improves hazard prediction

“…The implication is that good drivers are more likely to avoid accidents than are drivers with a record of offending. According to Simon and Corbett (1996), results of accident history are positively related to offending. The number of accidents and offences is higher among young men and their index of accidents is higher than those of women or older drivers (Laapoti et al, 2001;Yahya and Hammarstroöm, 2011).…”

Association of main driver-dependent risk factors with the risk of causing a vehicle collision in Spain, 1990–1999

“…Our study is therefore based on the assumption that there exists a particular group of collisions in which one of the drivers involved (the one who committed an infraction) is more responsible than the other driver(s), or is more likely to be the responsible driver than are the drivers who committed no infraction (15). Although the relationship between committing an infraction and the risk of being involved in traffic crashes has been well established (20)(21)(22), the assumption that the infractor is responsible for the collision may not be true. However, the approach we used in the present study makes such an association plausible: in a collision in which only one of the drivers committed an infraction and the other involved drivers did not, the former driver is much more likely to have caused the accident (15).…”