Toward Understanding On-road Interactions between Male and Female Drivers

The current members of Sustainable Worldwide Transportation include Autoliv Electronics, Bosch, FIA Foundation for the Automobile and Society, General Motors, Honda R&D Americas, Meritor WABCO, Nissan Technical Center North America, Renault, and Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America. Information about Sustainable Worldwide Transportation is available at: http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt 16. Abstract This study examined gender effects in six geometric scenarios of two-vehicle crashes in which an involved driver could potentially ascertain the gender of the other driver prior to the crash. The actual frequencies of different combinations of the involved male and female drivers in these crash scenarios were compared to the expected frequencies if there were no gender interactions. The expected frequencies were based on annual distance driven for personal travel by male and female drivers. The results indicate that in certain crash scenarios, male-to-male crashes tend to be underrepresented and female-to-female crashes tend to be over-represented. This pattern of results could be due to either differential gender exposure to the different scenarios, differential gender capabilities to handle specific scenarios, or differential expectations of actions by other drivers based on their gender. The current lack of information on gender exposure in different scenarios, scenario-specific driver skills, and driver expectations based on other drivers’ gender prevents ruling out any of these possible explanations. 17. Key Words