See the verdict: are women drivers worse than men?

New SA police figures may finally end an argument as old as the automobile; who is better at obeying the road rules - women or men?

Police figures may finally end an argument as old as the automobile; who is better behind the wheel, women or men.

With roughly the same numbers on the road, men far outstrip women in serious offending, are often more than twice as bad and in the case of drink driving almost four times as bad; 19,038 offences compared to 5754 in the last five years.

Police have revealed the law-breaking behaviour of the two genders as part of a campaign to make male drivers better consider their behaviour.

Transport Department figures show there are 1,309,253 drivers in South Australia, 624,391 female, 666,234 male and 628 non-binary or not listed.

SAPOL acting superintendent Damien Eichner said the service had released to The Advertiser figures on some of the most dangerous road behaviour.

“Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, speeding, not wearing a seatbelt or using a mobile phone behind the wheel are all irresponsible and dangerous acts that contribute to serious injury and death,’’ he said.

“Male drivers are consistently over represented in these behaviours and unfortunately, this is reflected in the loss of life and serious injuries sustained on our roads.

A car has flipped upside after a single vehicle crash on Bunda Street in Cairns City.

In the last 5 years there have been 453 male and 128 female lives lost in addition to serious injuries to 2466 males and 1239 females resulting from collisions on South Australian Roads.

“This statistical data, along with attitudinal research, is used to develop advertising and education campaigns that aim to alter the behaviours that lead to catastrophic consequences.”

Police are currently targeting male drivers with an advertising campaign branding them “selfish p***ks”.

Men have improved their position compared to women by small amounts since 2017, in the categories of drink and drug driving. But they have become comparatively worse in mobile phone use behind the wheel, speeding and seatbelt use.

RAA road safety spokesman Charles Mountain said it was pleasing to see overall improvement with less offending, but the gender divide was a concern.

He said there was no evidence that men spent significantly more time driving than women, which could explain some of the differences.

“The thought is that men may be more prone to taking risks in terms of driving behaviours,’’ Mr Mountain said.

“These are not some of the bad road behaviours that can happen by mistake, they are choosing to drink and drive or speed excessively.

“They show that many people need to take driving and the consequences of bad driving far more seriously than they do, and that does apply to both sexes.”

Fiona Nation, 33, says she is “not shocked at all” to learn females are better drivers than men.

“I’d say women are generally speaking more risk-averse, so would be better drivers,” Ms Nation said.