Male Drivers Take More Risks

1 November 2006

Male drivers are more than twice as likely as women to assume good road conditions are safer and then take dangerous risks, according to a new national survey.
A poll of 1,500 drivers by YouGov for the THINK! Road safety campaign revealed that men are less inclined than women to consider road conditions when driving on rural roads and almost a quarter believe it is acceptable to speed when they think it safe to do so.

However, while male drivers may think that less traffic and fewer pedestrians on rural roads mean they're safer, the reality is that, per mile, you are three times more likely to die in an accident on a rural road than an urban one.

Other rural road survey findings:

• Male drivers more readily find driving over the speed limit acceptable compared to females, particularly when driving:
• On open roads with few cars (32% v 19%)
• When weather conditions are good (26% v 15%)
• On familiar roads (20% v 11%)
• Where there are no pedestrians around (17% v 12%)
• One in five men admitted to usually driving over the speed limit on rural roads, compared to 8% of women
• A fifth of males only consider themselves to be speeding when they are driving over 10mph over the national speed limit of 60mph
• One in four people living in cities think they are more likely to have an accident on an urban road yet one in three (31%) have had an accident or near miss on a rural road

Details on a new THINK! rural speed advertising campaign to remind motorists to drive carefully on rural roads is being launched by the Department for Transport can be found at www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/slowdown/slowdown.htm