On car accidents

MelissaMiranti · 2022-11-14T16:28:52+00:00

I wonder if the number of raw deaths is why insurance companies see fit to charge men more, whereas if they charged women more under the deaths per mile driven that would cause backlash.

pvtshoebox · 2022-11-15T20:29:23+00:00

It’s not just “accidents per mile” - that is too simple.

Men drive more miles, but those miles are also more likely to be highway miles.

Per mile, you are much more likely to have an accident (possibly very mild) on stop-and-go city roads than you will on highways. On the flip side, accidents on highways are much more costly and deadly.

Usually reporting on this issue ends with “when men cause accidents, it tends to be more deadly and at higher speeds” which is casual dog-whistle misandry reminding us that mens poor choices and risky behavior are to blame. The reality is much simpler - they are more likely to have a highway accident (because of their driving pattern) and those accidents are inherently speedier and deadlier.

Rather than ask why men are driving more highway miles (they have a longer commute to work, typically, and will also take on disproportionate shares of driving expectations on long trips), reporters tend to affirm their own bias that men are just testosterone-crazed speed junkies that we should all be concerned about.

Then, the conversation ends with all agreeing that men are terrible and it is unfair that women are maligned as the “bad drivers.”

Maldevinine · 2022-11-16T07:36:41+00:00

A separate cause for men's higher fatality numbers in driving is suicide. It is unknown how many because many of the front line services involved will actively look for reasons to call something not a suicide, but when I was working road crash accident it was known among the older members that several of the single male fatality events we attended were "call of the void" rather than an accident.

a-man-from-earth · 2022-11-14T13:39:00+00:00

Interesting. But what do you want us to discuss?

hendrixski · 2022-11-17T12:31:28+00:00

When talking about pedestrian deaths, taking more risk is certainly one factor out of many. Another factor is how drivers act around men versus women.

As a bicyclist I am aware that cars pass male cyclists closer and at faster speeds than they do female cyclists. This contributes to a higher rate of death among male cyclists. I remember reading about studies that showed this long long ago and it made a real impression on me that I need to be twice as safe when riding because drivers are less safe around me. I assume this "take extra care when driving around women" factor must also extend around pedestrians. The gender-bias of drivers is likely to be another major factor in why men and boys are killed by cars more often than women and girls.

SuperSupremeKai · 2022-11-14T21:47:38+00:00

I wonder how many female fatalities can be mitigated even further if crash tests were made with female bodies/drivers in mind.

Tevorino · 2022-11-17T16:14:09+00:00

In my experience, we can neatly divide preventable car accidents into two categories: accidents caused by incompetence or negligence, and accidents caused by recklessness (including aggressive driving).

When we think about the stereotypes that would typically exist in the mind of someone who thinks that it's reasonable to charge men more than women for auto insurance, when all other aspects are equal, we are mainly thinking about stereotypes involving recklessness. We are thinking about people who drag race, or try to show off their ability to perform risky driving manoeuvres, or fail to leave early enough to get somewhere on time, yet still feel entitled to get there on time by doing risky things like speeding, running lights, etc. These stereotypes tend to be sexist against men as well as ageist against younger people, making negative generalisations of young men for the actions of a relatively small portion of them.

I vaguely remember, as a kid in the 80s and early 90s, that the stereotypes about incompetent or negligent driving targeted women, recent immigrants (especially from eastern Asia), and older people. Today, it seems that older people are targeted by that stereotype just as much as they were back then, recent immigrants are targeted less, and women are very rarely targeted. The only post-2000 example I can remember where a woman was portrayed in this manner was in this scene (WARNING: it's racist and sexist, perhaps NSFW for that reason) from Family Guy, and it seems like the main emphasis is on her race and not appearing to have grown up in the US, rather than on her sex. I attribute this change to the success of certain advocacy groups in changing some parts of cultural zeitgeist, while not caring about some other parts.

Both types of accidents can be severe, and it stands to reason that the reckless accidents are going to be much more severe, on average, due to their tendency to involve things like excessive speed. I think the simple solution is to flat-out ban the consideration of a person's sex by insurance actuaries. Consider what kind of driving they do, consider mileage, consider years of proven driving experience (treat someone who just turned 16 the same as a 50 year-old who only just started driving), consider their history of traffic law violations; all of that is fair game to me. There is no need for an insurance actuary to care what is between their legs.

Title	On car accidents
Author	griii2
Upvotes	24
Comments	29
Date	November 13, 2022 11:30 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/yuig00/on_car_accidents/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/on-car-accidents.1139940 https://theredarchive.com/post/1139940