A NEW insurance company specifically for women drivers says that male motorists are not the urbane sophisticates they think they are but, in many of their responses and reactions are similar to Neanderthals.

It says that despite the mockery directed at female drivers, men are responsible for 97 per cent of dangerous driving incidents and commit 83 per cent of the nation’s speeding offences. Yet when asked about their driving most men claim to be models of politeness and precaution.

In a survey commissioned by First Alternative Woman, more than four fifths of men said that if they were approaching traffic lights at amber they would slow down and prepare to stop. Just one in 20 admitted that he would try to race past before the light went red.

An even higher proportion said that they would slow down and wait for a safe opportunity to overtake if a slower vehicle pulled out in front of them on the motorway. Again, only about one in 20 said that he would overtake aggressively, gesticulating as he went.

More than a third of male drivers claimed that it would never bother them if a bad traffic jam was making them late. Just one in 50 said that he would be really angry.

Dr Peter Marsh of the Social Issues Research Centre, in a report entitled Sex Difference in Driving and Insurance Risk, says that there are psychological and evolutionary reasons why men exhibit far more risk-taking and aggressive behaviour than women on the road and why they don’t realise they are doing it.

Dr Marsh’s report says: “Our 21st-century skulls, although full of learned behaviours about what we ‘should’ do in certain situations, essentially contain Stone Age brains, and the brains of men and women are different in certain crucial aspects. Stone Age man did not drive but men’s brains are still governed by the hunter-gatherer instinct. This means that crucially when men get behind the wheel, instinct dictates that they are psychologically programmed for the thrill of the chase, targeted aggression and a degree of lawlessness.”

Women, Dr Marsh argues, do not suffer from the same affliction. Their Stone Age brains were programmed for child-rearing, communication and social skills. These nurturing instincts persist and make female drivers are far less likely to demonstrate aggressive, hunter-gatherer behaviour.