Say yes to cheaper van, home and car insurance

Brunel University researchers hope to put an end the age-old argument about which gender is better at driving with their latest work, according to a report in the Times newspaper.

It appears that women are indeed the safer sex, with women reportedly being more compliant with the rules of the road and more accepting of road safety measures.

On the issue of speed cameras, which are designed to make drivers slow down and obey the speed limit, over half of women said that they complied with cameras, compared with 43 per cent of men.

Slightly more naughty was the admission by a quarter of women who said that they slowed down only briefly for cameras, but they were still considerably ahead of the 39 per cent of men who admitted the offence.

Claire Corbett, director of Brunel's criminal justice research group and author of the study, said: "Our findings and those of other researchers' together, show that women tend to drive more safely and think more about driving and road-safety matters than men.

"Women are more compliant in their behaviour and it seems that men are more keen, perhaps biologically and culturally, to engage in risky behaviour," she added.

The Association of British Drivers, whose directors are all male and who have a male dominated membership, acquiesced that women might be less likely to speed because they were more likely to have children in the car.

"A male sales rep might drive quite differently because he is driving on his own," it reasoned in the Times.

Female drivers are encouraged to shop around for cheaper car insurance as women are often offered discounts on the basis that male drivers account for the majority of road accidents, including being responsible for 97 per cent of convictions for dangerous driving and 94 per cent for causing death or bodily harm, according to the Home Office.