When comparing men and women, men are nearly twice as likely to be involved in a collision due to being careless, reckless or in a hurry.  They are also more likely to crash because of poor behaviour or inexperience.

The main differences highlighted in the report are:

• Careless, reckless or in a hurry is recorded more frequently for men (10%) than women (6%).

• Travelling too fast for the conditions is recorded more frequently for men (7%) than women (4%).

• Poor driving behaviour or inexperience is recorded more frequently for men (14%) than women (10%).

Conversely most men and women enjoy driving, and rate themselves to be confident, considerate and safe. But almost twice as many men as women claim to be “very confident” drivers.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: 'These results show that we need to look at the psychology of male drivers to reduce risky behaviour and over-confidence, but for both sexes accidents could be easily reduced by improving driver skills and lives could be saved.'