Effect of Harassment, Stereotypes, and Distractions on Female Driving Behavior in Egypt

Men and women are different in their driving behavior. The reasons for these differences vary from neurochemical structures, hormonal processes, to physical abilities for long driving hours or stress coming from accompanying children while driving. In Egypt and Middle East, female drivers face a diversity of challenges such as the stereotype that women are poor drivers. Moreover, there have been incidents when female drivers faced road harassments from other drivers, which may lead to accidents. In this research, data was collected from 1038 Egyptian female drivers in the age of 16 to 75 years old. The risk factors that play a significant role in their exposure to accidents are investigated. Among the investigated risk factors are road harassment from other drivers, stereotype to psychological burden of accompanying children in the car, aggressive behavior and distraction activities shared with their opponent male drivers. The results show that 87% of female drivers experienced some form of road harassment. About 69% of these women were exposed to accidents due to this, and their driving behavior changed consequently. The results also show that there is an evident stereotype threat from the common thought that women are poor drivers. The effect of this stereotype is represented by higher odds ratio for the occurrence of accidents for women who sometimes/often are stereotyped by getting blamed in traffic incidents with odds ratio of 1.206/1.887 respectively with respect to women who were never stereotyped.