Survey shows women are better drivers

WOMEN are better drivers than men, new telematics data has revealed.

This was one of the conclusions from customer-incident data released by the stolen-vehicle-recovery and fleet intelligence company Netstar.

The company said this was another recognition of the important role women played in maintaining society’s functioning and disproved patriarchal stereotypes of bad “woman drivers”.

It further showed that men in general were worse at adhering to safe driving practices.

Netstar chief technology officer Cliff de Wit said the findings indicated that their female customers drove better than their male counterparts during the four months surveyed.

“The data was gathered using Netstar telematics – a combination of vehicle sensors, GPS and telecommunications technology, and supports emerging offerings like usage-based vehicle insurance and underwriting.”

De Wit said the new data calculated registered incidences of vehicle impacts as well as harsh braking, acceleration and cornering as a percentage of total male and female Netstar customers.

“On every metric, women performed better than men.

“Registered vehicle impacts, for example hitting potholes, kerbs or other vehicles, by women customers represented 1.3% of the total number of the company’s female customer base during the period measured, compared to 1.4% for men.”

De Wit said in terms of harsh braking, registered incidents represented 16.9% of female members and 22.8% of male members.