Keep those roving eyes on the road, boys

Not all attractive women may be femmes fatales but for nearly one third of Irish men they can prove a dangerous distraction on the roads, a new survey has found.

In asking motorists what roadside distraction caused them to have a near miss, the AA found some 29 per cent of Irish males admitted to nearly crashing their car while checking out members of the opposite sex.

Whether it is down to the Irish male’s lack of hotness or a woman’s power of concentration, only 2.3 per cent of females surveyed said they had been distracted by an attractive man.

Advertising billboards (15 per cent) and crashes (13 per cent) also proved distracting for both sexes, the online survey of over 15,000 motorists found.

“While people may joke about a ‘mini skirt affect’, the onlooker phenomenon or ‘rubbernecking’ can be dangerous and frustrating,” the AA’s Conor Faughnan said.

The survey also revealed men were more likely (10 per cent to 4.8 per cent) to be distracted by seeing an eye-catching car and another driver stopped by gardaí (12.9 per cent to 10.4 per cent)

Overall, women came out as being less prone to distraction and only topped their male counterparts by looking at more roadside art.

However, the survey did reveal how easy it is to rear end another vehicle, with one woman admitting she crashed into the car in front after admiring another woman’s outfit.

On a county by county level, Co Kilkenny drivers were found to have the most near misses as a result of a roving eye with drivers in Co Roscommon the least.

“Although many of us have given ourselves a fright with a near miss, the number of actual collisions is small and serious injuries even smaller,” Mr Faughnan said.

“The message for drivers is that simple accidents happen very quickly, so let’s remind ourselves to concentrate this summer on the roads,” he added.