Aimee Blanchette @ Strib: With more total driver's licenses, women passing men on the roads :
The jokes about dreadful female drivers can officially take a back seat.For the first time ever, more women than men have driver’s licenses nationwide. This gender gap reversal means safer roads and less pollution.
That’s according to the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, which says that in 2010, 105 million women held licenses, compared with 104 million men. Women are more likely to purchase “smaller, safer and more fuel-efficient vehicles” and “drive less and tend to have a lower fatality rate per distance driven,” said Michael Sivak, the study’s co-author.
The stereotype, however, has been a joke as long as women have been driving.
“It wasn’t true and I don’t think people find it funny anymore,” said David Levinson, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota.“Statistics have long shown that the average woman is a slightly safer driver than the average man.”
