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 negotiatingcrossroads, 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-representedand 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.'

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)