Playing devils advocate here, because I try not to subscribe to the "woman = instant bad driver" theory, but he didn't say they were dangerous...he said they were crap. I've seen the same argument in young driver vs. elderly driver arguments, where someone will try to claim that the elderly are better drivers by presenting accident statistics proving that young males are statistically more dangerous and involved in more accidents.
However it misses the point, which is that when people talk about crap driving, they don't have to be referring to dangerous habits...there are plenty of driving traits that can be considered the mark of a "bad" driver, without necessarily being dangerous. Therefore the reasoning for these opinions tends to be from anecdotal experience.
I agree entirely. Bad driver does not instantly mean fatal or serious accident and there is a lot which can differentiate a bad driver from a good driver.
Just from my own experiences, women drivers tend to have far more minor accidents, especially when parking. They seem to reverse into poles/other cars/scrape up road furniture and misjudge space and distance far more then men do. Another thing that I hear a lot of women doing is hitting kerbs and/or blowing out tyres in the process. Most of the types of incident they have are akin to what older drivers (who are mostly *terrible* drivers) have, which are obviously scarcely fatal and rarely reported to the insurance company because of the lower level of cost. I find middle aged (and old) women to be unduly slow in their decision making, hesitant at things like junctions and roundabouts and although they drive slowly, they really aren't looking at what is happening around them (that said, men will drive faster and still often aren't aware what's happening around them, which isn't good!). They may have more accidents in places like junctions/roundabouts (as the "non fault" party from people rear ending them) but again, these are scarcely fatal.
Younger men tend to make idiotic decisions. They will overtake in some insane places, sit 0.2cm from the car in front and most have the driving skill of a chimp, but think they are Lewis Hamilton. Surprise surprise when they tend to have more higher speed/higher injury accidents. Middle aged men tend to be in a rush a lot more and old men seem to drive as slowly and aimlessly as old women.
You're aware that the statistics are from the US, yes? Just checking because that feels like an opinion based on your experience in the UK. When I was in the US, even just "driving to the shops" would often mean driving much further than you would in the UK, not just pottering down the high street at 30mph.
What he's alluding to is that the type of journey, and indeed times of travel, would be statistically significant. I'm willing to bet that, on average, women make far more local journeys in towns and cities in areas familiar to them, than men who may travel further afield in areas that are unfamiliar.