Safe Speed Forums

In the press yesterday was an article saying that there has been an increase in female drivers being done in the courts because of cameras, whereas in the past a female has been able to get away with it by fluttering her eyelashes at a real copper, now they can't get away with it because the cameras don't discriminate.

With reference to your article on the relative increases in women speeding and a decrease in men speeding (Up to Speed, last week), I think it may be more accurate to say "more women summonsed" and "fewer men summonsed" as this anomaly may be caused by spouses taking the points for each other.

involved in the most accidents, speed more etc.
Testosterone speaks for itself.

I think most insurance companies would disagree with you. Can you perhaps show me your stats per km? As I have stats which contradict what you are saying..would be interested to know.

Forsyth (1992) quotes figures from the UK in 1987 that show male drivers between the ages of 17 and 20 having an average of 440 injury accidents per 100 million km driven. The average for all male drivers was 106 injury accidents. Comparable figures for female drivers in this age bracket were 240 versus 125 injury accidents per 100 million km driven.

If comparing age brackets, then women have less. If comparing average, women have more.
I would prefer to see research from newer stats as those are 18 years old.

For many young drivers, especially males - to judge from those who end up in accident case files at least - driving is fun, challenging, exciting, a way of testing themselves, and a way of showing off. Of course there are limits. Speed, road conditions, weather, traffic, and vehicle performance all combine to produce a 'space' - a part of the multi-dimensional graph describing vehicle, driver and environment - in which one can move about safely. The safe region has edges. (Test pilots call them 'the envelope', and their job is to find and to 'push back' that envelope when flying new kinds of plane.) Some young drivers think they are test pilots too. Their interest is to find and explore the envelope, or else to assume they know where it is and to operate on its edges. They talk and behave as if this envelope - the dividing line between accident-free driving and collision - is visible, precise and stable. If that were true, they would get away with what they do, to the extent they were as skilful as they thought. But they are prancing on a crumbling cliff, not a hard edge. If it gives way, it will do so without warning, without apparent cause, and without the chance of recovery. No one knows exactly where the dangers lie. There is no clear line between safety and catastrophe. And what division there is, is constantly changing. Given that 'the envelope' works like that, the only skill is to keep well away from the edge. This is the essential message that we must put across to young drivers.

They think that the driving styles that have been accident-free in the past will be accident-free in the future, unless they make a noticeable change - but they are wrong. They think that unsafe driving will soon reveal its dangers, and they can learn - but they are wrong. The normal conditions of successful learning do not apply.

The game of Russian roulette is not proved safe if you hear three clicks and no bang. The game of Russian roulette is only safe for those with the sense not to play it.