Observations were conducted on weekdays at the beginning of school term. We chose this time of the year (“back to school”) because road safety awareness campaigns are run by several institutions and in the media during this period.
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The “SUV effect” was highest for mobile phone use (for both women and men), followed by driving unbelted and violating traffic lights. The SUV effect in women was most pronounced for unbelted driving (in this case the effect was even stronger in women than in men)
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How can these SUV effects be explained in general and especially in the case of women? Factors related to the car type might be the feeling of greater safety due to higher position of the driver and the altogether more sturdy nature of SUVs. It is known that women’s car buying is driven by different reasons (e. g., reliability and safety aspects) than men. The feeling of safety when driving a SUV might induce a more risky behavior especially in women.
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As data from Germany indicate, SUV drivers are often executive staff or self-employed professionals [
30]. This may be associated with tight work schedules that involve a great amount of mobility, communication, and coordination. Thus, this group is more likely to talk on the phone, and might be more likely to take this risk while driving because of the car’s characteristic and the feeling of safety.
For the first time, this study investigated gender aspects of the “SUV effect”. When driving a SUV, women approach frequency of certain violations of traffic law in males driving ordinary cars and regarding driving unbelted come even closer to the same behavior of men. As drivers of sport utility vehicles are more likely to show an unsafe driving behavior, this, on the one hand, adds to the risks of SUVs for other traffic participants [
31]. On the other hand, it affects the safety of SUV drivers themselves. From a public health point of view, awareness campaigns specifically targeting drivers of SUVs and tailored also to female drivers should be designed and implemented.