Study: More Female Drivers Mistakenly Hit Gas Pedal

WASHINGTON (AP) — A government study says accidents in which drivers mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brake tend to involve older female drivers in parking lots.

One of the most striking and consistent findings of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study was that nearly two-thirds of drivers who had such accidents were female. The study says the reverse is true for crashes in general — about 60 percent of drivers involved in accidents are male.

Another finding is gas pedal accidents tend to occur more frequently among drivers over age 76 and under age 20.

A majority of gas pedal accidents also occur in parking lots, parking garages and driveways — 57 percent in a North Carolina state crash database and 77 percent in 900 news reports examined by researchers.