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Speeding research shows male/female divide
It seems that there may be something in the adage that women are from venus and men are from mars – at least when it comes to their attitudes to speed!
New independent research conducted by MORI North has shown that men are generally less supportive and more cynical about the use of safety cameras, whereas women are more likely to recognise that cameras are there to encourage motorists to drive within the speed limit and not punish them.
The research was commissioned by Humberside Safety Camera Partnership to examine the attitudes of people living in the East Riding, Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire areas towards the use of safety cameras as a means of deterring speeding on the region’s roads.
It showed that 90 per cent of women believe that safety cameras should be supported as a method of reducing casualties. Although, the number of men surveyed who shared this view was still high at 82 per cent, this was one of several questions that proved that there are differences of opinion between genders.
The divide in male and female opinions was even more pronounced when respondents were asked whether they agreed with the statement ‘cameras are meant to encourage and not punish’. Again, women were very much in agreement, with 88 per cent concurring with this view, whereas only 66 per cent of men were of this opinion.
Also, 70 per cent of the men surveyed said that they believed that safety cameras are an easy way of making money out of motorists. In contrast, only 43 per cent of women held this view.
Ruth Gore, Marketing and Communication Officer for Humberside Safety Camera Partnership, commented: “It is interesting to compare the differences in the answers given by the men and women who took part in the survey, especially in view of the fact that statistics show that male motorists are more likely to exceed the speed limit than their female counterparts.
“In fact, it’s men in the 35-50 age group who are deemed to be the worst offenders. Often these men are professionals driving company vehicles. We hope that male drivers will try to redress the balance a little by really getting behind our efforts to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on the region’s roads. The consequences of being caught speeding could be losing your licence, and potentially your job. Even more seriously, you could take someone’s life or become a collision statistic yourself.”
