Traffic Safety Has a Men Problem

An article by Ladd Egan for KSL TV (link also includes a video of TV coverage of the story) , details the disparities in fatal crash data between men and women.

“An analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that in nearly every year from 1975 to 2020 the number of U.S. men killed in crashes was more than twice that of women,” reports Egan. The IIHA study was published iN May 2022.

“In 2020, males accounted for 72% of all motor vehicle crash deaths and 92% of motorcyclist deaths, according to the institute’s analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Transportation.”

In Utah, where Egan files this report, 85% of motorcycle crashes from 2017 to 2021 involved males, according to data from the Utah Department of Public Safety.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety identified risky behavior like speeding, drunk driving, and driving without a seatbelt as contributing to the gender disparities in traffic safety.

The focus on gender emerges the same week as a new batch of traffic safety data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finding that the first quarter of 2022 was the most dangerous period on U.S. roads in 20 years. The news of the connections between gender and traffic safety is not new. Data from 2019 also revealed a connection between men, SUVs, and traffic fatalities in New York City.