Insurance claims data released by the Royal Automobile Association has found that females make fewer claims overall for motor vehicle accidents and also account for only one quarter of claims for collisions resulting in serious damage.

Further to this, the data from the past two years shows women have claimed for just 35 per cent of rear-end collisions. 

Bathurst road safety advocate and driving instructor Matthew Irvine said he had done his own research into accidents within the last five years and was inclined to support the notion that women were safer drivers. 

“Research I did in the Central West indicated that the split between men and women in non-injury crashes was 45 per cent for women and 55 per cent for men,” he said.

Mr Irvine also found that crashes resulting in serious injury had a 70-30 per cent split in favour of women, and 90 per cent of vehicles involved in crashes had a male behind the wheel. 

He said these statistics didn’t factor in who was at fault, but in his experience as an instructor, women did tend to drive more safely. 

“Young women get the risk management stuff more naturally,” Mr Irvine said.

“They are more risk adverse than young men (aged 16-18). Do I have to work harder to make young men be safe? Yes.”

To avoid crashes, particularly rear-end collisions, Mr Irvine recommends people monitor their speed, monitor the environment they’re driving in and always maintain a three-second following distance, more in bad weather conditions.