The Slowdown: Men almost three times as likely to die on roads as women

Government data shows men make up around three quarters of the annual death toll. Photo / File

Men are almost three times as likely to be killed on the road as women - and the difference isn’t explained by the fact men drive more.

A Herald analysis of government road death data shows male drivers clock up 50 per cent more kilometres in a year than women, but men die behind the wheel 250 per cent more often than female drivers.

The statistics suggest, based on these numbers, if only women drove, about 150 lives would be saved from the annual road toll. If only men drove, about 100 more people would die on the road.

The male fatality rate has also climbed in recent years, so men now have almost triple the chance of being killed on the road than women.

Five years ago, they were just under two times more likely than women to die in a road crash.

It appears there is no simple answer to explain why more men die on the road. In New Zealand, men drive further than women, but that isn’t sufficient to explain the difference in deaths. Experts suggest it could be connected to males’ tendency to take more risks and to drive more than women.

“I don’t think it’s something anybody can conclusively give proof or evidence for,” AA’s road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said.

“But the consensus is males have more of a propensity toward taking risks than women do.”

Today the Herald launches “The Slowdown”, a series that will use data analysis to examine how speed contributes to our road death toll and whether the speed limit changes proposed by Waka Kotahi will help save lives.

Regardless of the cause of a serious crash, speed is a factor every single time.

Waka Kotahi says significant proportions of the country’s streets and roads have a posted speed limit that is higher than what it would classify as “safe and appropriate” and has begun proposing changes to some of these limits.

In the first step, Waka Kotahi’s interim plan lays out proposed changes for 3 per cent of our state highway network, including some of the country’s most high-risk roads, but more expansive changes are anticipated in its proper plan expected next year.

With one day remaining this year, 373 people have been killed in road crashes. That is more than each of the past three years and close to the toll in 2018, which, along with 2017, were the worst years since 2009.

In 2018, 247 or 65 per cent of the 360 people killed on the road were men, and that figure has increased slowly ever since.

In the two years affected by Covid lockdowns, 2020 and 2021, 229 and 239 men were killed in road crashes, respectively.

Around 74 per cent of road deaths (276) this year have been men.

National Road Policing Centre director Superintendent Steve Greally said irrespective of gender, every time a notification of a fatal crash comes through “your heart sinks”.

“You start to go into mental preparation mode because you know that it is highly likely what you are about to see, hear and experience is going to be highly traumatic.”

Greally was unable to say why more men are killed on the road than women but based on what he has seen during his many years of service, the statistics do not surprise him “one bit”.

“When I talk about some of the attitudes our people find when it comes to road safety matters and crashes and the like, it doesn’t surprise me to see that they’re overrepresented in statistics.”

High-performance cars were now easier to access, and younger drivers might be driving beyond their ability, he said.

“We’ve then got a combination of overconfidence, more confident than they have the ability, combined with a high-performing vehicle and decision making can be, at times, poor.

“You put those together and that’s when we see tragedy.”

Superintendent Steve Greally says road deaths also have a big impact on the police officers who attend them. Photo / John Borren

An over-representation of men in road crash statistics is reported around the world. The World Health Organisation says from a young age, men are more likely to be involved in a crash than women and about 73 per cent of all traffic deaths globally are men aged 25 or younger.

In Australia and the UK, male deaths made up similar proportions of annual road deaths in 2021 (75 per cent and 77 per cent, respectively) as New Zealand (75 per cent).

In New Zealand, male deaths account for about 75 per cent of roads deaths in most age groups.

New Zealand’s road death toll for the past five years is 1735. Crash fatalities can be excluded from the official toll in some circumstances, such as if the crash was intentional or related to a medical event, and deaths that happen 30 days after a crash are also not included.

Most of the men who have died on the road since 2018 were drivers (668) and 378 were either pedestrians, cyclists or motorcyclists.

These statistics heavily outweigh those for women, but the number of male and female passengers killed on the road in the past five years is the same.

Dr Samuel Charlton, of Waikato University’s School of Psychology, said when men and women drove together it was most common for the man to drive.

He said while men and women took the same amount of motor vehicle trips, men drove further than women.

“Therefore, men are likely to do things that will cause the crash, which would lead to a fatal or serious injury.”

A subset of men also tended to drive for performative reasons, rather than just to get somewhere.

“They drive as if they are performing, and they will take risks that other people don’t normally take. It’s not because they don’t value their life, it’s because they’re often driving as a performative aspect.”