Assisting the older driver - SWOV

Current state of the art: crashes and injuries
1.5. Differences between men and women
Apart from the differences between age groups, everything discussed up
until now applied to all drivers, men and women. However, crash and injury
rates may differ between male and female drivers. After all, it is known that
the driving experience of older men and women is very different (see also
Chapter 3), and it is assumed that more driving experience leads to lower
crash rates (see, for example, Massie, Green & Campbell, 1997). By contrast,
young male drivers have higher crash rates than young female drivers.
Among other things, this has to do with their high risk acceptation (Moe &
Jensen, 1993), overestimation of their driving skills (Moe, 1987) in
combination with underestimation of the complexity of traffic situations
(Brown & Copeman, 1975; Matthews & Moran, 1986), larger exposure to
extra dangerous circumstances such as weekend nights (Forsyth, 1992; Van
Kampen, 1989; Weissbrodt, 1989), and life style: trying out new things,
wanting to impress and outdo each other, and conforming to the group norm
(Twisk & Van der Vorst, 1994).
With regard to the older age groups, it seems that roles have been reversed.
Various studies indicate a larger crash rate for older women, and a greater
crash involvement of women in crash types that are characteristic for older
drivers, such as crashes at intersections and crashes while turning left
(Guerrier, Mannivannan & Nair, 1999; Hakamies‐Blomqvist, 1994b; Kim, Li,
Richardson & Nitz 1998; Massie, Green & Campbell, 1997). In this respect,
Massie, Green and Campbell (1997) point at differences in injury severity.
Women are more often involved in MDO (material damage only) and injury
crashes, whereas men are more often involved in fatal crashes. Massie et al.
moreover found that the greater crash involvement of women entirely
disappeared when the crash rate (the number of crashes per motor vehicle
kilometre) was corrected for the average annual kilometres travelled by the
driver group concerned (see also Section 1.2.4). This confirms the assumed
relation between driving experience and crash rate. If women had as much
driving experience as men, the model of Massie et al. predicts that women
would have lower crash rates than men.
Differences between male and female injury rates in the Netherlands are
shown in Figures 1.7 and 1.8, for all injury severities and fatalities
respectively.
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