France's New Road Safety Campaign Encourages People to 'Drive Like A Woman'

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As we’ve proven time and time again, dudes rock. After all, an ingrained sense of responsibility and self-preservation isn’t something that leads to awesome stuff like racing Harleys and Indians around a track in King of the Baggers. On a public road where other drivers are just hoping to go about their day unbothered and without crashing, though, dudes could definitely stand to be more responsible. Which is why, as Insider reports, a new road safety campaign in France is telling people to “drive like a woman.”

Forget Autonomy, Drivers Still Want Control

Victimes & Citoyens, a group that advocates for victims of crashes, reportedly launched the campaign to push back against the stereotype that men are better drivers than women. The group has the data to back it up, too, noting that men cause 84 percent of road deaths in the country. They also kill 88 percent of young drivers, account for 93 percent of all drunk driving crashes and are eight times more likely to be in a fatal road crash. “Statistically, driving like a woman means only one thing — staying alive,” the group claims.

While those statistics are damning, you can see similar trends in other countries, including the U.S. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, men have died in road crashes at more than twice the rate that women have almost every year from 1975 to 2021. That may be partly because men in the U.S. tend to drive more than women, but they’re also more likely to speed and drive under the influence while simultaneously being less likely to wear a seatbelt. After all, nothing says big, tough alpha male quite like your drunk ass flying through the windshield after you crash your car.

“When we look at the figures, they are clear: to stay alive behind the wheel,” Victimes & Citoyens claims, “the best thing for men to do is adopt the same behavior as women.”