Age Influences Driving Styles Of Men & Women, Young & Old!!!

It is not uncommon to hear expressions like: “Come on, push it”, “Go Fast”, “Chase them”, “Swing it around”, “I can do 180 without hassles”, “This machine can fly”, “Don’t drive like a girl”, “Go Macho”, Get into the top gear”, “Engage the Over drive” and so on when one is seated in a car driven by the teenagers and the younger generation in general.

It is easily seen that youngsters tend to drive fast and rash. They often exhibit fearlessness in speeding. Perhaps they are influenced by their age, energy, immaturity and relative absence of responsibility, financial commitment and accountability. Their care free attitude is influenced by newness, thrill of speed, zeal for adventure and achievement, peer pressure, empty roads, late night freedoms on the road, influence of co- passengers, media, motor rally and racing, commercial advertisements and film stunts.

This vigor is unmistakably seen in all youngsters; whether they drive a car or a motorcycle. This is very much in keeping with their age and natural instincts. The element of fear and concern is hardly visible. In fact they are very much influenced by peer pressure. And the boys often race their cars to impress their friends and fiancées. They love fantasy and adventure. Fun and thrill precedes all other thoughts. They hardly think about consequences and damages. They only demonstrate that a machine is for merciless handling and needs to be pushed to its extremities.

Young people usually pick up the physical skills of driving fast. As a result, feel they have mastered it well and generally become over confident about their driving ability. This makes young drivers drive unsafely, though they think they are absolute control of the vehicles. Many young people admit they often feel they are immortal and that they think that crashes can only happen to other people.

So they speed up all the time and race the engines most of the time. And when they have to stop they break hard. Even if it is a short stretch between two signal points they are usually inclined to touch the top speed. Obviously, they love the momentum brought about by acceleration and the thrill of bringing the vehicle to halt with a screeching noise from the tyres. Perhaps it is an exhibition of their masculinity and youth. They are not averse to taking risks.

Any driver going too fast is putting himself or herself and others more in danger on the road. Research also shows that younger drivers also take more risks due to a lack of experience and poor attitudes. It is these combined risks that make younger drivers much more prone to danger on the roads. They also contribute to the accidents in several instances. Accidents surveys in developed countries reveal that an 18-year-old driver is more than three times as likely to be involved in a crash as a 48 year-old.

Although some risks on the road are easy to identify, there are some situations where the risks are not immediately obvious. It often takes experience to notice these hidden risks and due to inexperience, young people may be poor at assessing these risks. A US research finding has shown inexperience to be a significant contributing factor to crash risk, particularly in relation to errors in attention, visual awareness, controlling of speed, hazard sensing and emergency maneuvers.

Younger drivers are presumably unaware of how devastating the consequences of taking risks can be. Research has shown that young drivers are less likely than older drivers to cite speeding as a major cause of crashes, and when asked to rank a number of driving situations in order of risk, young drivers ranked speeding significantly lower in risk than did older drivers. It has also been suggested that one of the reasons young drivers attach less importance to the risk of speeding is they are overconfident in their control and recovery skills.

Any new task takes a certain amount of concentration and driving in particular takes continuous concentration. Driving is a new experience for young people for both men and women. And they tend to use most of their mental energy on the immediate tasks such as gear changing, rather than general observation of the potential hazards. If there is a sudden need to avoid a situation, young people may be less able to deal with it due to their mental energy being focused on other distractions like cell phones, music, dialogues with co-passengers and so on.

Young male drivers have higher crash rates than young female drivers. This may be partly because there are more young men driving cars than young women especially in developing countries, but also because of particular attitudes of young men. Research shows that young male drivers aged 17-20 are seven times more at risk in getting involved in an accident than all male drivers. And between the hours of 2am and 5am this risk is 17 times higher.

Based on criteria of analyzing different traffic vehicle code violations (traffic violations) it has been noticed that men break more traffic laws and drive more dangerously than women. Because they violate laws designed to make the roads safer, men cause more accidents and expensive damage.

Studies by an Insurance company have found that men indulge in 5% more traffic violations than women that result in accidents. Topping the list is the finding that men are cited for reckless driving 3.41 more times than women. And reckless driving is considered one of the most serious traffic offenses by courts since it implies a disregard for the rights and safety of people or property.

The following table violations for which men scored at least 50 percent higher than women:

Men take more risks behind the wheel than women, and so get into serious crashes. Though any number of comparisons can be made between the driving abilities of men and women, if it comes to the likelihood of getting into a serious crash in which someone dies, men are more likely to be in such a fix. It is a commonly theory that men, especially young men, tend to drive more aggressively than women and display their aggression in a direct manner, rather than indirectly. Furthermore, as a rule of thumb, male drivers are more likely than women to break the law, and the male of the species tends to be more of a risk-taker.

Based on a study conducted in GB it was noticed that from 1975 to 2003, female deaths in motor vehicle crashes increased 14 percent, compared with an 11 percent decline for male motorists during that same period. Insurance industry experts peg the rise in female deaths in vehicular crashes to more women obtaining driver's licenses than in the past and driving more miles today than 25 years ago. It appears female motorists are getting more aggressive too.

Women are generally associated with passive driving, strictly adhering to speed limits and traffic rules. They also drive for shorter distance. Often they are accompanied by friends or family on long drives which ensure some inbuilt checks on non-safe driving practices.

Even so, it's hard to say women are better drivers, although they are statistically safer. Women have just as many accidents as men; however, they tend to be minor fender-benders. Men, on the other hand, perhaps tend to do a complete job even when it comes to crashing the car, and as a result cost the nation more lives and more money, though borne by insurance companies

Also as people get older there is more maturity and rationale. Drivers tend to be conscious of the consequences of unsafe driving. Drivers think of their spouse, children, family and the cost of getting into a mishap in terms of time and trauma, loss and labor, hitches and glitches, courts and cost, sorrow and sleeplessness, damages and dirtying hands. And therefore tend to cautious and careful.

Slower reaction times, poor concentration, sleepiness, confused thinking, over-confidence, preoccupation and distractions, imperfect visions, cramps and fatigue, excitement and anxiety are all the factors associated with older people erring in their driving and contributing to accidents.

Research findings indicate that injuries caused by car accidents are more fatal for elderly persons in comparison to younger age groups, but controversial findings are reported regarding the question of whether driving at old age increases the risk for occurrence of car accidents.