Statistics and risks for male and female drivers
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Teen driving expert Timothy Smith shares some unexpected statistics and risks for drivers based on gender. Want to learn more? Watch this video.
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Does gender affect fender benders? Well it's hard to generalize here, but there are some truisms about male and female behavior behind the wheel that bear consideration. Young males often tend to equate good driving with good handling skills, and that can often lead to riskier driving behavior. Males are more than twice as likely to die in traffic crashes then females. Males are also much more likely to be the perpetrators and the victims of road rage. So in working with boys, make sure you communicate to them that you will judge them to be a good driver disproportionately based on how well they obey the rules of the road, and how well they treat other drivers.
Young women on the other hand tend to equate good driving with understanding the rules of road and operating the car in the way they've been taught. Teen girls statistically get involved in crashes more frequently at intersections, at low speed during the week and without alcohol involvement. So, given their higher incidence of crashes at intersections, when you work with girls, practice left hand turns across traffic repeatedly. Reinforce that many drivers do not and will not obey the rights of way and will endanger them. Make sure they have that 2-3 second delay, Then look both ways, when the stop light changes and the stop signs to give them the extra margin of error for those who may blow through red, yellow and whites. Make sure that your girls give adequate following distance, 3-4 seconds.
So for those people who don't observe the rights of way or use turn signals, you've got enough time to brake effectively.
Teen driving expert Timothy Smith shares some unexpected statistics and risks for drivers based on gender. Want to learn more? Watch this video.
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Timothy SmithAuthor & Teen Driving Expert
Timothy Smith is a healthcare executive living in the Chicago area with his wife and three children. He got involved with teen driving several years ago when a number of teenagers were killed in multiple crashes near his home, virtually all due to driver error. His search for information to help his teens avoid car crashes yielded little of value, so he became a certified driving instructor, got trained and licensed to race cars, took defensive driving courses and ended up writing Crashproof Your Kids: Make Your Teen A Safer, Smarter Driver. He is also Chairman of Aegis Mobility, a software company which has developed technology to manage and reduce cell phone use while driving.
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