Statistics provided by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi showed male drivers were almost twice as likely to be involved in a car crash as female drivers in Otago and Southland.
Since 2019, 10,256 male drivers had been involved in crashes compared with 6156 women.
There had been 215 drivers involved in fatal crashes in the South since 2019, of which 156 were men.
The difference is not explained by the fact that men drive more, government data showing male drivers clock up 50% more kilometres than women while being 400% more likely to be involved in a crash on southern roads.
A police spokeswoman said their focus remained on keeping everyone safe on roads throughout New Zealand regardless of the gender of the driver.
"Our efforts are aimed at prevention and enforcement with the intent of reducing deaths and serious injuries on roads.
"We understand the devastating impacts crashes can have on individuals and families and continuously urge all drivers to share the responsibility of road safety."
The data showed between 2019 and May 2024, poor observation was the most frequent cause of crashes for both genders, alcohol and drugs coming in second for men, and failure to give way or stop second for women.
The only category women overtook men in was crashes in 10kmh zones, 17 women the cause of those crashes, compared with 16 for men.
Men crashed in 50kmh zones more often, with 5221 crashes, which was also the top zone for women, who were involved in 3694 crashes.
An NZTA spokesman said the data came from NZTA’s crash database, which was updated once a traffic crash report was put through by police.
"Fatal crash report data is usually recorded within one working day ... Due to the nature of non-fatal crashes, it’s believed these are under-reported," he said.
Due Covid-19, there were fewer vehicles on southern roads in 2020 and 2021, which reduced the number of crashes during that period, he said.
"Data from this period will not align with previous trends."
