Source: The Mercury, 3 September 1993, p. 9 Source: The Mercury, 3 September 1993, p. 9
By CHARLES WATERHOUSE THE chance of having a motor vehicle accident does not de- pend on your sex but how many kilometres you travel, a survey shows. Tasmanian underwriting manager of QBE Insurance Ltd Graham Day said a study of 1992 Tasmanian statistics found the accident probability rates for men and women were almost the same despite a lar- ger number of accidents in- volving men being reported to police. This was because men travelled about twice as many kilometres a year as women and slightly more men had licences. Mr Day based the kilometres travelled in 1992 on estimates supplied by 76 QBE men and women policy holders rather than applying them to the Tas- manian population. Men travelled between 8200 to 10,600 kilometres a year, while women between 4700 to 6600 kilometres a year. The estimated probability of an accident in Tasmania for men was one every 319,500 kilometres and for women one every 318,500 kilometres. Recently released statistics from the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority showed women drivers were three times less likely than men to be involved in a fatal collisions. Officer in charge of traffic in the eastern police district Senior Sergeant Glen Woolley said women were "very re- sponsible drivers" and the NSW statistics did not to sur- prise him. "I think females are more likely to be involved in minor accidents as opposed to more serious accidents," he said. Robin Eccles, a part owner of Hobart's VIP Driving School and a driving instruc- tor for 20 years, said women had come of age as drivers. "The reason men have more accidents is because they are more mechanically minded and they know the limits of their vehicles and drive close to those limits," he said. "The wives don't drive to the limit because they don't know the car's limit." Taxi Combined Services' Linda Houston said: "I have seen some fairly woeful female drivers and some fairly woeful male drivers. "I think more men are driv- ing on the road and therefore are more likely to have acci- dents. "Men take more chances and like to drive fast."
Where to next?
Student Questions for this article
Teacher Discussion of this article
Index - Inference