Truth to a stereotype? Women drivers are more likely to be involved in an accident, scientists found after analysing data from 6.5million car crashes.

Women drivers are more likely to be involved in an accident, according to scientists.

Researchers looked at 6.5million car crashes and found a higher than expected number of accidents between two female drivers.

They also discovered that women have a tough time negotiating crossroads, T-junctions and slip roads.

The results are even more surprising given that men spend more time behind the wheel than women. On average, men drive 60 percent of the time, and women 40 percent.

Michael Sivak, of the University of Michigan, said: 'The results indicate that in certain crash scenarios, male-to-male crashes tend to be under-represented and female-to-female crashes tend to be over-represented.'

Dr Sivak and his colleague Brandon Schoettle studied data from a nationally representative sample of police-reported crashes in the US from 1988 to 2007.

They had expected to find that accidents involving two male drivers would make up 36.2 percent of all crashes, while female/female accidents would account for 15.8 percent and male/female 48 percent.

Instead, they discovered that accidents involving two women drivers were 20.5 percent, while male/male crashes were much lower at 31.9 percent.

Accidents involving male and female drivers stood at 47.6 percent, as expected.

The scientists also found that women were more likely than men to crash at a junction - their cars are often hit on the left-hand side when trying to make a right-hand turn, and vice versa.

Dr Sivak said this might be due to height difference between the sexes.

He said: 'There are three dominant driver-related factors, including the probability of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, one's own driving skills and the driving skills of the other driver involved.'

科学家称，女司机更容易出交通事故。

研究人员查看了650万个车祸案例，发现双方都是女司机时发生的交通事故比预想的要多。

他们还发现，女司机驾车通过十字路口、丁字路口和支路比较困难。

考虑到男性驾车时间比女性更长，这一研究结果更令人吃惊。平均来看，60%的时间是男性开车， 40%的时间是女性开车。

密歇根大学的迈克尔•西瓦克说：“研究结果表明，在特定的车祸场景下，男司机和男司机相撞的事故不够具有代表性，而女司机和女司机相撞的事故则很常见。”

西瓦克博士和他的同事布兰顿•舒奥托研究了1988年到2007年警方报道的全美具有代表性的车祸案例资料。

他们本以为所看到的两个男司机相撞的事故会占所有交通事故的36.2%，而两个女司机相撞的事故会占15.8%，男女司机相撞的事故会占48%。

结果他们发现两个女司机相撞的事故占了20.5%，两个男司机相撞的事故比例则比预想的低得多，为31.9%。

男女司机相撞的事故比例为47.6%，和预想的差不多。

科学家还发现，和男司机相比，女司机在交叉路口撞车的可能性更高，她们的车经常在试图向右拐的时候在左侧被撞上，反之亦然。

西瓦克博士说，这可能是由男女身高的差异造成的。

他说：“跟司机有关的三大主要车祸原因包括：在错误的时间出现在错误的地点、本人的驾驶技术，以及对方司机的驾驶技术。”

negotiate: to successfully get over or past a difficult part on a path or route 通过，越过（险要路段）

slip road: a road used for driving onto or off a motorway/freeway（进出高速公路的）支路，岔道

scenario: a description of how things might happen in the future（场景；设想；方案；预测）

under-represented: 代表性不足

over-represented: 代表人数超出比例的