IIHS rates a number of traffic safety laws for the states. Click the following to get their ratings for:
Note: The National Safety Commission (link to the right) is not part of IIHS but is closely related in their objectives.
Are Women Better Drivers than Men?
Click on the title above and answer the question: what is wrong with this report? We will not argue with the conclusion: it could well be true for a gender comparison in general. Obviously it does not apply to every male driver and every female driver. So, hasty generalization to all males and all females is a real danger, as in the case of most studies of this type.
A much larger problem is in the experimental design. Most of the conclusions drawn do not take into consideration that males could well drive twice as much as females. Consider those who log the greatest number of miles per year -- big rig truck drivers and also delivery drivers.
We will confess that we have taken the bait and are guilty of using this topic to increase readership. However, we do so with the hope that these types of populist reports are given much greater in-depth consideration by the traffic safety community so that they do not have any more influence on actual traffic safety policy than they deserve.
-- Dave Brown (brown@cs.ua.edu)