Victoria'S road toll has long been considered a male problem, associated with boys, toys and bloody idiots. But the latest figures show a sharp jump in the number of women dying on the state's roads.
So far in 2004, road deaths have risen 6 per cent over the same period last year. Male fatalities have fallen marginally, but female road deaths are up 40 per cent.
New figures from the Transport Accident Commission show that 108 women died on Victorian roads this year to December 8, compared with 77 in the same period last year. Men still outnumber women (217 to 108), but the gap is narrowing.
David Healy, TAC general manager of road safety, said many of the women killed were passengers or pedestrians, But deaths had also risen among women drivers.
Some in Victoria Police are concerned that aggressive driving is increasingly common among young women and may be contributing to the toll.
"I've noticed that a lot of the aggressive drivers are now females," Michael Talbot, head of the major collision investigation unit, said. "It seems a lot of the speeding drivers - those who are talking on phones and tailgating others - are younger women."
Ian Johnston, who runs Monash University's accident research centre, said the jump in the number of female deaths was partly a statistical glitch. But women were contributing more to the toll as female car ownership grew, he said.
Women still tended to be safer drivers than their male counterparts, but they had some disadvantages. "Women, just because of their physiology, are often less able to withstand large high-impact trauma," he said. "Also, the type of cars they are buying tend to be smaller cars and cars that don't do as well in collisions."
As of Wednesday, 325 people had died this year on Victorian roads, up 19 on the same time last year. The 2003 toll, which finished at 333, was the lowest since records began in the early 1950s. On current numbers, 2004 appears likely to be the second-lowest.
Professor Johnston said the toll had reached a new plateau. In the mid-1980s it sat around 700, then was cut by the introduction of random breath testing.
Throughout most of the '90s it hovered just over 400, varying by up to 15 per cent. "Now we have shifted to a place around the 350 mark, with a plus or minus variation due to sheer chance," he said.
He credits the Government's controversial crackdown on speeding but believes the anti-speed campaign is reaching the limits of its effectiveness.
"You can improve behaviour but there will always be human error and we need to better protect against it," he said. That means more money from governments to make roadsides safer and protect motorists from trees and poles.
A breakdown of the toll also offers some insights, although Mr Healy warned they could be skewed because of small samples.
A pattern is emerging of rising fatalities among young and old drivers, cancelled out by falling death rates for the middle-aged.
Among young drivers, fatalities have risen sharply - up 38 per cent from last year in the 18-20 range and up 35 per cent among 21 to 25-year-olds.
In the 50-59 age group, fatalities have jumped 34 per cent since last year; among 60 to 69-year-olds they are up 55 per cent. In the middle categories, toll numbers have fallen. Among 26 to 29-year-olds they are down 46 per cent; among 40 to 49-year-olds they have dropped 12 per cent.
But the biggest shift in the road toll may be hiding behind the statistics, according to Professor Johnston.
He has been co-operating with the TAC on research into the serious injury toll, which, because it is a larger sample, is often considered a more reliable guide to road safety trends than the death toll.
In recent years, as fatalities have fallen, the injury toll has remained more or less stable. But when Professor Johnston checked medical records and insurance claims for the type of injuries being suffered, a more complex picture emerged.
His report, not yet finished, will show that while the number of serious injuries is relatively stable, their severity is reducing as the anti-speed message sinks in.
Even so, Inspector Talbot, while hoping for a quiet Christmas period, is not betting on it. "The message that I try to get out is that death doesn't target a particular class of people. It can hit anybody," he said.
"It's not just the young blokes who have to watch their driving: it's women, older people, everybody."