It's an old joke that men make disparaging comments about women drivers, and it's a fact that most comedy comes from truth - but is there truth in the notion that men are better drivers than women? Not according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration! According to a report they released in 2004, male drivers were involved in 1,369,000 more property-damage incidents, 432,000 crashes without fatalities, and 27,000 more accidents with fatalities than their female counterparts. In addition, those accidents combined to cause over 18,000,000 insurance claims, which were made by men in all age ranges, not just the younger, riskier, 18-24-year-olds.



An article written a couple years ago quoted Brad Vermillion, an insurance agent from Ohio as offering this explanation, "By nature, men are generally more aggressive and tend to engage in riskier driving practices, such as not wearing their seat belt, speeding and driving under the influence." He added that men also tend to cover more miles in their cars over their lifetimes, which increases the risk of having an accident and thus the number of insurance claims they may file.

We know, of course, that this risk-taking behavior makes young men the most expensive drivers to insure, but what about the rest of the gender? Do NHTSA statistics such as this actually affect insurance rates? Surprisingly, they do. According to insurance agent Lori Hicks of California, men are still likely to pay a higher premium than women even if they live in a safe neighborhood, and have an excellent driving record and high credit scores.

If you're a woman reading this, don't get smug just yet, because the gap between female and male statistics when it comes to auto insurance claims is starting to get smaller. Women are driving longer distances, and spending more time in their cars, as they continue to juggle career and family obligations, acting as chauffeurs for their children. The more time you spend in a car, the more your stress increases and focus decreases, making you the prime candidate for an accident. For women, this is happening all too often.

While only time will show us if the gap between male and female drivers eventually narrows to nothing, or if male driving habits will continue to cause more accidents and more claims, men are leading this competition at the moment, and the best thing they can do to help reduce accidents? Lori Hicks again, "Buckle up. So many injuries are caused by not wearing seatbelts, and really it's preventable."