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By Faizel Patel

Senior Journalist


Sorry guys, women are better drivers – new data reveals

The data calculates incidences of vehicle impacts, harsh braking, acceleration and cornering.


Who are better drivers, men or women? This is a debate that has been going on as long as which came first, the chicken or the egg?

While the debate will continue to rage on, new telematics data from Netstar suggests that women are better drivers than men.

This will no doubt infuriate some guys, but Netstar explains.

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The insight is one of the conclusions from customer-incident data released by Netstar, a subsidiary of Altron.

The new data calculates registered incidences of vehicle impacts, harsh braking, harsh acceleration, and harsh cornering as a percentage of total male and female Netstar customers.

“On every metric, women performed better than men.” Sorry guys.

The report also reveals registered vehicle impacts (e.g. hitting potholes, kerbs, or other vehicles) by women customers represented 1,3% of the total number of Netstar’s female customer base during the period measured, compared to 1,4% for men.

In terms of harsh braking, registered incidents represent 16,9% of female members and 22,8% of male members.

The numbers for harsh acceleration are 4,5% for women and 10% for men. For harsh cornering, the proportions are 13,2% (women) vs 18,8% (men).

Netstar Chief Technology Officer Cliff de Wit said the findings indicate that their female customers drove better than males during the four months that it measured.

“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.”

“The data provides direct, real-time information to help insurers understand client driving behaviour, which allows them to set relevant premiums and to incentivise safe and more sustainable driving,” De Wit said.

Netstar said its data supports the findings of a recent survey of road fatality data in the UK.

“The data found there were more fatalities per billion kilometres travelled among men then there were among women. This was true for all vehicle types – cars, vans, lorries, motorcycles, busses and bicycles.”

De Wit said despite the outcome of such studies, it encourages drivers of all gender identities to drive safely and to use their telematics data to improve their performance and protect lives.

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