Two weeks ago we asked you if female drivers should pay less for car insurance in comparison to male drivers. Statistics from research by universities and insurance companies indicate that female drivers are safer when it comes to driving. We have now compiled the results of our own survey.
In 2012 the European Commission made a ruling that stopped insurance companies from taking gender into account when calculating insurance companies. 56% of those who took part in the survey said that this EC decision was taking political correctness too far. 45% of those who answered the survey said that women should pay less car insurance.
We opted to create this survey after reading research from NoNonsense car insurance, which said that female drivers appeared to be “better drivers than men”. The insurance company used information from a telematics device which 2,000 people had volunteered to use in their cars. This “SmartDriver” device can potentially monitor driving mannerisms showing analytics on: location, how long you have been driving at a given time, acceleration, braking, cornering, fuel economy, and more. Of those who completed the survey, 63% said that they would be willing to connect such a telematics device to their vehicle. 70% however said that telematics devices like this should not be made mandatory.
Other results from the survey showed that 88% thought that insurance should be priced “on a driver’s merits as opposed to their gender”.
Five of those who answered the survey opted to leave the following comments:
1. “Women have less accidents but they are not better drivers. Often, their ultra-slow driving causes accidents. Better drivers? With almost 40 years of driving experience, I don't think so.”
2. Telematics device? Rubbish!!!
It will not tell how a driver will behave in a critical situation on the road or how much attention a driver pays to driving. Slow not always mean safe. Slow and careless or not concentrating on driving driver is not safe, and this device will only tell if someone is accelerating and braking gently or not gently, perhaps it may tell someone is exceeding speed limits or not. But this does not tell much. Someone driving “gently” but not capable of braking hard in an emergency is not a good driver, nor is a “gentle” driver, slowly joining traffic without checking if there is any other car coming. Could provide hundreds of examples proving that such a device is useless and it cannot determine whether a driver is a safe driver or not.
3. We should pay less for careful driving no matter what gender.
4. Gender should have no say in the premium. It should solely be based on the experience and capability of the driver. Bad/poor driver =higher premium. End of discussion.
5. No point in paying extra for a black box over the age of 25 when the novice driver risk drops dramatically.
