Women are better drivers than men, report reveals

A female driver. [Photo:Courtesy]

It's official, women are better drivers than men according to one pay-as-you-go insurer.

Insurethebox analysed 4.5 billion miles of driving data and compared the genders to reveal exactly which sex of drives is safer - and who is most likely to rack up a bill.

It found that women are safer drivers overall, especially when it comes to speeding - with men 46 per cent as likely to speed than women.

Younger drivers (17-25) are the biggest culprits, with young men speeding 55 per cent more than young women.

Among the youngest drivers, the gap is even bigger, with 17-year-old men speeding 76 per cent more than women of the same age.

And when it comes to driving in the dark - women were found to be the safest gender yet again.

Driving in the dark is significantly more dangerous than driving when visibility is clear, and young men drive 28 per cent more than women during these hours.

According to Insurethebox, nearly a quarter of accident alerts happen between midnight and 5am, even though only 4 per cent of road use is between these hours.

When it comes to road safety, men in Scotland are the biggest culprits of speeding - 20-year-old Scottish men in particular are four times more likely to speed than women of all ages in the East of England.

"Speed is the single biggest contributor to driving risk – and the one thing that every driver has control over – yet it seems to be the biggest differentiator between young women and men driving safely," explained Naomi Little at Insurethebox.

"Insurethebox data shows that drivers who speed 20 per cent of the time increase their risk of having an accident by 87 per cent. This is partly because when driving at excessive speeds drivers have less time to react to any unexpected hazards. No matter who’s driving, drivers need to give themselves the time to make every journey a safe one."