Teen boy drivers have notoriously higher insurance rates, due to their aggressive and risky driving behavior...and the crash rates to prove it. But the gap in risky behavior between teen boys and girls seems to be closing according to a recent report from The Allstate Foundation.In the study, girls admit to speeding, texting, and acting aggressively behind the wheel more than boys. But the survey statistics haven't translated into crash statistics. But if the trend continues, it could result in higher premiums for girls.
"Experience still shows female drivers are safer than boys at this age," Allstate spokesman Raleigh Floyd said. "Until those figures change, our rating isn't going to change."
But even so, the rates have grown a little. Twenty years ago, it cost an average of 50% more to insure a young male than young female. These days it's about 20% to 30% more. "There is still a gap, but it's getting smaller all the time," said Thomas DeFalco, an actuary at the New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Co.
And Sam Belden, vice president at Insurance.com, said data compiled through the online agency show that premiums for 16-year-old girl drivers have risen about $500 over the last two years, while those for boys in the same age group have been roughly flat.
Most chalk it up to distractions. DVD players, MP3 players, friends in the car...and maybe it boils down to plain boredom. Everyone is in such a hurry.
Kristen Marzano, 17, has had her license for about five months and admitted that sometimes she puts on her makeup or fixes her hair in the car or plays with her MP3 player.
"It's mostly I wait until the last minute to do everything," she said. "If I'm going to drive, I'm running out the door, dropping things. I guess it's just being disorganized."
Check out the statistics from the study below...parents and teens alike, are you one of the numbers?
Thank you to Chicago Tribune
2 comments:
I know it's hard to argue with their original research, but I work for a teen driver performance company and I just don't think we see the same correlation.
At CarCheckup we provide a system that tracks driver performance (like speed, rpm, throttle position, and the like) then that data is uploaded to our servers and processed into easy to use graphs. (We also provide insight into why your check engine light is on, but if you want more info on that you can visit http://www.carcheckup.com)
We can't really detect texting or talking on cell phones, but we can analyze the results from the teens trip for hard acceleration, hard breaking, throttle position and the like...We haven't found much difference between these high risk actions and if the teen is male or female.
I'm not saying that texting doesn't increase risk...but I do think that if it's causing one sex to be more at risk, we'd see some indication of that from our customer base.
Hi Travis, you bring up a great point.
The research was gathered just by a survey...not by a tracking device. I would bet that the girls were being a little more honest, I would dein to say even exaggerating, over the boys?
But you've found there is little to no difference in things such as hard acceleration and hard braking?
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