Image: Colourbox
The mobility behavior of women is safer than that of men, both for themselves and for other road users: This is shown by an analysis by the Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) on the occasion of International Women’s Day on Wednesday. According to this, women cause a third of road accidents involving personal injury, men twice as many. Around three times as many men as women are killed on the roads. “If men were mobile as safely as women, the number of road deaths in Austria would be half as high,” said VCÖ expert Lina Mosshammer, summing up the results calculated on the basis of data from Statistics Austria. From 2019 to 2021, 291 women died in traffic accidents, the number of fatally injured men was three times as high at 825. The ratio in the previous year was similar: in the first eleven months, 86 women and 253 men died in road traffic.
According to the VCÖ, women also cause fewer road accidents with personal injury overall. According to Statistics Austria, based on police surveys, a total of 10,088 women were responsible for an accident with injuries in 2021. At 21,360, twice as many such accidents were caused by men. This was also the case in 2020 (men: 20,175, women: 9,287).
However, mobility behavior also differs from that of men: According to the VCÖ, women generally walk more often, drive a car a little less often and ride a motorcycle far less often. Public transport is used with similar frequency. In Vorarlberg and Lower Austria, for example, women use bicycles as often as men as a means of transport, in large cities such as Graz and Vienna they use them less than men.
86% of alcohol-related accidents involving men
Although women walk more, in the three-year period from 2019 to 2021, 36 percent more pedestrians died at 89 than female pedestrians (65). 340 men died as car occupants, twice as many as women. Similarly with cycling: at 86, a little more than twice as many men died as women (37). The difference is greatest for motorcycles and mopeds. From 2019 to 2021, 239 men died with a motorized two-wheeler – 15 times as many as women.
The difference in drinking and driving is extremely clear, the VCÖ reported: 86 percent of the alcohol drivers involved in traffic accidents from 2019 to 2021 were men. On average, women cover slightly more everyday journeys than men, but fewer kilometers: According to the most recent nationwide survey in 2013/14, they travel a quarter fewer kilometers overall. They do two-thirds more shopping trips and even around three-quarters more pick-up and drop-off trips. “The special requirements that ‘Mobility of Care’ entails are currently far too little taken into account in traffic planning,” said Mosshammer. This means mobility for care and support, for example with small children or people in need of care. Outside of the big cities, a lack of public connections is often a problem.
According to the VCÖ, this also affects women more on their way to work. Around 80 percent of part-time jobs are held by women. However, public connections are primarily tailored to the classic commuting times of full-time jobs. There is a need for more train and bus connections during the day and at off-peak times, as well as greater consideration of the diverse mobility patterns in traffic planning.
Source: Nachrichten
