Women are Safer Drivers

An recent report found that women are far safer drivers than men. As a matter of fact, according to the assembled data, men have a 77% higher chance of dying in a car accident than women. Some of the notable facts from the report are:
- An 82 year old woman is more 60% more likely to die in an accident than a 16 year-old teen.

- Drivers 40-50 are the lease likely to die in an accident.

- The safest passenger in a vehicle at any time, any where is an infant in a car seat in a van.

- School buses have a fatality rate that is 1/50th that of a passenger car.

- Motorcycle riders are 32 times as likely to be killed than drivers in a passenger car.

- A rider between the ages of 21 and 24 riding between midnight and 4AM is 45,000 times more likely to be killed on the bike than in a car.

Allstate says Sioux Falls is safest driving city

Researchers with Allstate Insurance Co. says Sioux Falls is safest driving city. Factors likely to have helped push Sioux Falls to the top spot include streets that are laid out logical and strong traffic enforcement. Allstate Insurance Co. found that each motorist in this growing city in southeast South Dakota has on average one accident every 14.3 years - 30% better than the national rate of one every 10 years.
Motorists in Newark, N.J., were most at risk, according to the study, averaging an accident once every 5 years. Washington, D.C., was second-to-last at 5.1 years.

Why the elderly are more car-accident prone

Starting at their 60s, many people will lose some of their eyesight and the ability to judge the speed of oncoming cars. Complex judgments, like executing a quick left turn, can take these driver 50% more time than they take a 20-year-old. Also, The average 75-year-old needs at least 3 times more light than a 25-year-old to see the same objects.

Source: Reader Digest (July, 2003)

How many people got killed because of drunk driving ?

17,000 people were killed, and 1/2 million people were injured in 2005 due to drunk driving. Source: http://www.madd.org

Dangers of 16-year-old drivers

1 teen in the car with a teen driver, the fatal crash risk doubles, with two or more teens in the car, the risk can be five times high.
Source: Insurance Institute for Highway

1.5% of Illinois state driver's licenses (2003) were held by 16-year-olds, but they accounted for 2.7 % of fatal crashes. Their rate of fatal crashes was second to that of 18-year-olds and three times the rate of 50- to 54-year-old drivers.
Source: Illinois Department of Transportation