Accident statistics on Swiss roads What puts men in danger so much more often than women
Men have more frequent and more serious accidents on Swiss roads, while women do so in certain everyday situations. If you break down the statistics by gender, you can see how role models, mobility and risk behavior shape road traffic.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- 250 people died on Swiss roads in 2024. 188 men and 62 women. The number of serious injuries has been rising for years.
- Young men between the ages of 18 and 24 are around two and a half times more likely to have a serious accident than women of the same age.
- Men drive further, faster and more often with alcohol in their blood. Women have less driving experience and are more likely to have accidents in built-up areas and in the stress of morning traffic.
- The most common cause of serious accidents for both genders is failure to give way.
- Driving disqualifications, criminal convictions and insurance premiums show: Men have the higher risk profile.
According to the latest road accident statistics from the Federal Roads Office (Astra), there were 17,432 accidents with personal injury in 2024. 250 people died, 3,792 were seriously injured and 16,721 were slightly injured.
The number of fatalities has thus stagnated at a high level for several years, while the number of serious injuries has tended to increase in recent years. The Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU) speaks of an "unfavorable trend" in the 2024 Safety Barometer.
A breakdown of the figures by gender immediately reveals a clear imbalance: 188 of those killed in 2024 were men, 62 were women. This difference applies to all age groups - it is particularly pronounced among young adults.
A recent analysis shows that 18 to 24-year-old men account for just under 9.7 serious accidents - fatalities and serious injuries - per 10,000 inhabitants.
For women of the same age, the figure is 3.7, meaning that young men have around two and a half times as many serious accidents as women of the same age. Similar patterns can be found in all age groups.
Men have more driving experience
Statistically speaking, those who are on the road a lot also have more opportunities to have accidents. Differences in mobility behavior therefore play a central role in the assessment of road safety.
The Mobility and Transport Microcensus 2021 shows: The Swiss resident population travels an average of 30 kilometers per day, a good two-thirds of which is by car. Various cantonal evaluations based on this data come to the conclusion that women on average travel less than men.
The fact that men are disproportionately behind the wheel and women are slightly more likely to travel on foot or by public transport is related to gainful employment, care work and household duties.
People who work full-time and commute are more likely to be in the car. People who take their children to school or do their shopping are more likely to walk or cycle. In Switzerland, women are still more likely to do this.
If the number of kilometers driven is taken into account, women over 25 cause slightly more accidents than men. However, the severity of accidents remains unevenly distributed: Men have serious or fatal injuries significantly more often.
Men have to surrender their driver's license more often
A look at criminal law provides further indications of driving behavior: According to an analysis by the BFU from 2013, 86 percent of convictions under the Road Traffic Act were men and only 14 percent were women. Of over 85,000 driving license withdrawals, just under 70,000 were attributable to men.
Even the insurance market reacts, albeit moderately, to this different risk profile. An analysis by the comparison service Comparis shows that men pay slightly higher car insurance premiums on average than women. The difference is not large, the average premium is around 1.3 percent: where the risk is higher, the costs increase slightly.
The perspective of accident researchers is also interesting. In an analysis on the topic of "Gender as a risk factor", it is emphasized that men drink alcohol more frequently and then drive. The BFU also came to the conclusion in 2024 that men in Switzerland drive under the influence of alcohol more often than women, and older people more often than younger people.
Overconfidence with accident consequences
The difference is even clearer when it comes to speed. According to the BFU, around a third of all serious accidents involving 18 to 24-year-olds in 2019-2023 were caused by inappropriate or excessive speed.
For young men, 36 percent of their serious accidents were speed-related, compared to only 25 percent for young women. Men therefore tend to drive more riskily, overestimate themselves more often and therefore get into situations where speed or alcohol play a role more often. On average, women are more defensive drivers and tend to avoid dangerous situations, which makes the consequences of their accidents less severe.
The statistical difference thus becomes a behavioral one: the willingness to take risks and overconfidence are unequally distributed in road traffic, and they determine how and where accidents happen.
Higher accident risk for women in commuter traffic
The main causes of serious accidents differ significantly depending on gender. For female drivers, disregarding the right of way is the most common cause of serious collisions. This is around three times as often as inattention, speed or distraction and eight times as often as alcohol.
For men, too, failure to give way is the biggest problem, but the range of causes is wider. Disregarding the right of way is "only" twice as common as inattention, speeding or driving under the influence of alcohol.
These differences are closely linked to everyday patterns. A Suva study a few years ago showed that working women have a higher accident risk per kilometer driven than men, especially between 7 and 8 in the morning.
The reasons according to the study: stress, multiple workloads due to job, children and household, and often less driving experience. Morning traffic is a high-stress zone for many women.
So who drives better?
If you only look at the total number of accidents, you quickly end up with "men are more dangerous". But if you look at the risk profiles over the course of the day, you will also see female problem patterns.
The question of who are the better drivers can therefore not be answered with a single value. The BFU already provided a clear, slightly ironic formula in 2011: Women are "more disciplined but less experienced" at the wheel than men.
On average, they drive less, often on shorter inner-city routes. Men are more likely to drive on freeways, where the risk of accidents is lowest, but at higher speeds, with more overconfidence and higher consequential damage. Men and women therefore travel differently on Swiss roads, and are at different risks.
