44% of people who drive vehicles in Spain are women. Although there is data that shows that they are better than men in terms of road safety, there is still a belief that this is not the case, and today women still have to hear derogatory comments about their driving skills. To refute those who think that female motorists are a danger, the DGT has shared three key pieces of information on its social networks.
The first of them refers to the loss of the driving license due to exhausting all the points. As a general rule, drivers start with a balance of 12 points, but novice drivers and those who have obtained it after being withdrawn start with 8 points. This figure is not fixed and can increase to a maximum of 15 points or decrease to zero depending on the traffic violations discussed.
When the score runs out of points, the driver loses his license and must undergo specific training to drive vehicles again. According to DGT data, only 10% of license withdrawals due to exhaustion of points are from women; The remaining 90% correspond to men who have committed violations for which they are temporarily prevented from driving.
The second data used by the organization directed by Pere Navarro indicates that 28% of the people who drive and are involved in an accident with victims are women. And the third points out that only 8% of those killed while driving who tested positive for alcohol or drugs were women.
According to the 2022 Report on Toxicological Findings in Fatal Traffic Accident Victims, prepared by the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences (INTCF), 92% of the 451 positive results of drivers in the consumption of alcohol, drugs and/or psychotropic drugs They were men: 63.6% were between 25 and 54 years old, and 51.4% drove a car (33% rode a motorcycle or moped).
Although, in general terms, women are more cautious behind the wheel or handlebars of a motorcycle – as we indicated at the beginning of this article – they are less represented in the group of drivers. In 2022, they represented almost 45% of new drivers in Spain, with 237,117 new registrations. This figure is the lowest since 1988, when there were more women (51%) than men (49%) as new drivers. The highest percentage was reached in 2010, when 54.7% of new drivers were women (254,064).
In any case, the highest volume that the female population has reached in a year of new registrations was in 2008, when 429,450 women were added to Spanish roads, with a share of 49.2%, while 50.8% corresponded to men, with 443,972 users, in the year in which the most new drivers were added, with 873,422 new total registrations.
“The figures for issuing driving licenses are a clear witness of the evolution of women in society,” said the commercial director of Informes Mecánicos, Marina Sánchez. “Already in the 1962 statistical yearbook, the Traffic Department reported that the number of female drivers was growing “significantly” and pointed to access to certain jobs as one of the reasons,” she added.
Currently, the provinces with the highest figures are in those territories where the vehicle is an everyday necessity: Balearic Islands (49.7%), A Coruña (46.9%) and Pontevedra (46.4%). . That is, an archipelago, where vehicle use is usually more common, and two Galician provinces, a community with a very dispersed population.