Women Are Safer Drivers

Though women drivers are often the objects of jokes or curses, the joke is really on the men. Two British companies are offering lower insurance rates to women. The Royal Automobile Club last month reduced its premiums by 10%; the Zurich Insurance Co. had already cut its rates by 20%. U.S. casualty companies, whose executives admit that women are better risks than men, are not nearly so generous. Many of them offer 10% discounts to women, but only to those aged 30 to 64 who are the sole operators of their cars.

A study by the Zurich company showed that women are less costly to insure than men. While the women have more accidents per mile, their smashups are less serious and 20% less costly to settle. Women tend to clobber fence posts and rear bumpers; men often hit other cars head-on and at higher speeds. A separate survey by the World Health Organization made similar findings. Says Robert Pansard, a French safety official who participated in the WHO study: "Although women are perhaps more emotional, they do not possess the drive for power which often becomes aggressiveness in male drivers." They also do not drive as much at night or on dangerous rural roads as men do.

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