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Girls Against Boys

Random fact of the day, via the WSJ:

State Farm, the nation’s largest insurance company, says that currently its auto coverage premiums for teenage boys are about 40% higher than for girls. In 1985, that gap was about 61%, says Vicki Harper, a spokeswoman for State Farm, which has more than 42 million auto policies. Most girls still get a break on premiums, she says, but “their premium rates reflect there isn’t as much of a difference as the rate for a teenage boy.”

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at 8:40 am and is filed under Risk, Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Girls Against Boys”

  1. Vagabondblogger Says:
    May 6th, 2010 at 9:42 am

    I asked my husband about this statement (as I am confused) and he said he’s read several articles recently related to this subject. Apparently either girls are speeding more, or in the past “turned on the waterworks” to get out of a ticket. We have both, but they are no longer teenagers, and I can state as a fact that our daughter avoided several tickets by crying (and bullshitting) her way out of them, just getting written warnings. Whereas, our son, is more likely (I was with him when this happened) to have a patrolman walk up, say “you were going this speed, don’t get out of the car, just give me your license, I have everything else on you I need to know.” (Just a bit scary, “I have everything else on you I need to know.”) And it was Wham, Bam, Thank-You Ma’am with him. Let me add, that when I’m back in the States, in my small Connecticut town, I notice something of a bit of discrimination against young men / boys when it comes to traffic stops / tickets, as well.

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

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