Background Research
We started off our search by going to google (http://www. google.com) and typing in “driving abilities + gender” but the results weren’t adequate to what I was looking for so I decided to take another route. I wanted to see if statistical data was available for ticket distribution among teenagers. I started off by looking at the North Olmsted police department’s web page (http://www. north-olmsted.com/Departments/police_station.htm). However, no data concerning speeding tickets was obtainable. I then searched Google for the juvenile courts system for Cleveland where a broader population would be represented (http://juvenile.cuyahogacounty.us/history.htm). When I found the website I was looking for it didn’t contain any of the statistical data I was looking for either.
Then we thought, who would use the type of information we are looking for? And, we figured that insurance companies use this information all of the time to set rates for their policies. We searched “insurance companies” on Google and came up with the top companies in the business. State Farm Insurance was the first to come up (http://www.statefarm.com/). There I clicked on the insurance button which took me to a page where I clicked on a button titled “what affects the price of auto insurance?” There one of the explanations was for age, sex, and marital status as a factor. “Accident rates are higher for all drivers under age 25, especially young males and single males. Insurance prices in most states reflect these differences.”
After, I went to the Allstate insurance web page (http://www.allstate.com/). When I browsed through it though, nothing came up about the pricing reasons so I went on to Progressive Auto Insurance. (http://www.progressive.com/) They didn’t have anything statistically based either, so I moved on to the next company which was Geico Insurance (http://www.geico.com/). The web page, however, was based on giving out quotes rather than explaining the company’s policies and terms.
After looking at several insurance companies, I decided to turn to a different direction and look for companies who specialized in statistical analysis. I went back to Mrs. Caso’s homepage where I remembered she had posted some national statistical data sources (http://www.fedstats.gov/). There I clicked on the second option and then clicked on topics A-Z. I wasn’t able to find any driving statistics on that page so I went back. The rest of the options on that page didn’t suit my search so once again I went to Google. I searched “statistics + driving.” The second webpage that showed up was “teen driving statistics…” (http://www.carfax.com/teen_driving/ Teen_Safety_Tips. cfm). I figured that should have what I’m looking for so I clicked on it. The link took me to a sub link of Car fax. I found the home page afterwards where on a left hand column there was a link titled boys vs. girls. I clicked on it. It stated that males are more than twice as likely as females to get into serious car crashes. Although this is true, the rate of males in accidents has been declining while the rate for females has increasing over the last twenty years.
After getting this information, I went back to the search engine page. I clicked on the first link which was the MADD homepage (http://www.madd.org/ stats/1112). On the left side in broke down the type of statistics into different categories. I found gender and clicked on it. It came up with a few more links but they were all based on fatalities and our project is based more on misdemeanors and small accidents since that would include more of the population at North Olmsted High School.