Male motorists were more accident-prone than women in 2009, according to an analysis of road accidents conducted by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros).
According to Miros, the number of male drivers involved in road accidents in 2009 was 2.4 times higher than that of women drivers.
Miros director-general, Professor Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah, said the analysis was based on police statistics.
There were 244,336 accidents involving male drivers in 2009, as compared to 103,153 involving women.
Based on the country’s population, he said men had the average of 1,351.74 accidents for every 100,000 male population, and an average of 537.97 accidents for every 100,000 female population.
“From these statistics, men clearly have a higher risk of being involved in an accident than women,” he said.
However, Komunitikini questions if accidents per 100,ooo heads of population is an accurate gauge of accident rate by gender, rather than gauging this figure by the number of registered male and female drivers.
Given that the population of the country includes infants and those unqualified for a driver’s licence who are under-18, Miros’ analysis becomes even more inaccurate.
However, Ahmad Farhan goes on to reveal that a relatively more detailed analysis of the statistics also finds an unhealthy trend of women’s involvement in road accidents between 2006 and 2009.
“The number of male drivers involved in accidents increased by 67.93 percent from 2006 to 2009, but the number of women drivers involved in accidents in the same period had almost doubled at 97.74 per cent,” he said.
Ahmad Farhan was commenting on a statement by Kinabatangan Member of Parliament, Bung Moktar Radin, in the Dewan Rakyat, two days ago, that women drivers were more reckless than men.
He said studies had shown that men and women have different traits, which in turn, might influence their driving behaviour.
“Generally, women are good at multi-tasking. As driving requires action and reaction, a multi-tasker may tend to slip up and this may result in being errant in driving.
“Perhaps, this may be the reason for some women drivers making slip-ups while driving, as claimed by the member of parliament,” he said.
He added that men were known to have better psychomotor skills, making them highly-confident and, at times, over-confident.
“As a result, a man tends to drive at high speed, take chances and is a greater risk (factor) on the road.”
Komunitikini says: If you drive faster than you know how to stop, you should take the bus. Or LRT. Or hire a driver with your handbag and shoe budget. Or with your luxury watch or fancy alloy rims budget (attention, macho CEOs).
— Bernama
Dr Keith Tan Kay Hin
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