She calls herself Abbie and she’s a good girl.

She’s just a terrible driver. A menace, really.

Abbie is 24 years old. She says she’s been stopped by police more than 50 times since she got her license. That was eight years ago. It’s been a hell of a ride since.

“I used to find entertainment in taking a picture of myself going 100 mph and then post it on Facebook,” Abbie wrote in response to a query about bad driving habits. “I used to try and see how fast I could drive around corners. I rear-ended a car from texting and blamed it on a spider.”

You can’t blame everything on arachnids. Over those eight years, Abbie has been cited several times, including once on a charge of criminal speed.

But is she a renegade? An aberration?

The facts say no. These days, young ladies who drive are catching up with their counterparts, those bad boys who drive too fast, spin doughnuts in parking lots and occasionally wreck their daddies’ cars.

“At State Farm, over the past 25 years the difference in auto insurance rates for females vs. males has decreased by about a third, 61 percent to 40 percent,” says Vicki Harper, a spokeswoman for the insurance giant.

Women used to get a huge break in insurance premiums, the reason being that they were much more cautious, much more trustworthy than boys — icky boys with their drag racing and highway games of chicken.

Not anymore. The ladies still pay less, but not much less. State Farm and other insurance companies have seen the statistics. Women can be reckless, too. They talk on cell phones while cruising down the avenues. They send text messages at 70 mph. Some seem to think of their cars as portable social centers.

“I sometimes see cars in the opposite direction almost go off the road because I am swaying into their lane due to texting or just not paying attention,” says the unabashed Abbie. “I can eat pizza, drive, and talk on the phone like a champ. “

It’s not like Abbie developed those bad habits over time. They were there from the get-go.

“While taking my first safety driver course, my work yelled at me for posting that I was on my way to safety driver course on my Facebook,” Abbie says, “because that was the lesson I was supposed to be learning: No texting/e-mailing/Facebooking while driving!”

When asked if she plans to change her ways – to become a more responsible driver – there is no reply. Abbie is silent on the subject. And so we turn our attention to another young lady who only recently finished taking driver’s ed.

Her name is Kayla and she made it through the course. She learned all about the perils of driving while distracted by phones and other gadgets. It was drilled into her head.

“There were posters all over the wall,” Kayla says. “There’s a whole section that covers it.”

It’s over. She’s done. She’s ready to motor.

But this 15-year-old is so passionate about driving, she’s still doing class work. She’s researching and crunching numbers. She’s comparing apples to oranges and apples to apples. That is, she took a look at the number of car crashes involving females and those involving males between the start of 2009 and the middle of this summer.

Her findings: During that span, 24 young ladies between the ages of 15 and 30 were involved in crashes in Lewiston. The majority of the crashes were rear-end collisions attributed to driver inattention. The number of young men involved in crashes of the same variety was smaller, at 17.

Kayla found more. The average age of young women who crashed in Lewiston is 24. On the boys’ side, the average age is 20. At a glance, the statistics appear to be revealing. But what do they reveal?

Lewiston Police Deputy Chief James Minkowsky cautions against putting too much faith in the numbers alone. Not everything is known about what caused each crash. In some, the drivers admitted to the source of their inattention – the phone, the text message, the long, self-adoring look in the rearview mirror.

But as Abbie has taught us, it’s just as easy for that driver to lie. “A dog ran out in front of my car, Mr. Policeman. I was not texting my BFF at all.”

“We can’t always determine for sure that it was a phone or something like that,” says Minkowsky, who happens to be Kayla’s dad. “The problem may be that we’re not asking the right questions about what the distraction may have been.”

The other problem is that it’s somewhat taboo to suggest that one gender may be more adept at driving than the other. It’s OK if you’re an analyst for an insurance company perhaps, but if you’re just another guy on the street making that claim, you best ready yourself for a screeching verbal assault and possibly a kick in the shins.

It helps to have numbers at the ready.

According to Allstate, 48 percent of females admit to speeding at least 10 miles per hour over the limit. Only 36 percent of males make the same admission.

Among girls, 16 percent describe their own driving as aggressive these days, compared to just 9 percent five years ago.

More than half the females confess that they are likely to drive while talking or texting, compared to 38 percent of the males.

Why the ladies are getting more reckless is anybody’s guess. One popular theory has it that women in general are becoming more assertive, more ambitious and more willing to take risks in all areas of their lives.

Regardless, the ladies still get better insurance rates, as a fictional pair named Miranda and Brandon will attest

In our make-believe world, both are 20, both drive a Nissan Maxima and both are getting insurance for the first time. All criteria is the same, from education to living arrangements. The final quote for Miranda is $642 for six months of coverage.

Poor Brandon, who has done nothing to warrant the harsher rate, will pay $800 for the same policy.

It’s kind of shocking to Kayla, as well. She doesn’t rankle at questions about the driving habits of her peers. When she was a wee lass, neighborhood boys used to ride her around on four-wheelers, toy Jeeps and dirt bikes. Experience told her that they were the ones with the special skills.

“I just always thought that boys were the better drivers,” she says. “I don’t really know why.”

But now, after 35 hours of class work and 10 hours of actual driving, she knows better. Success behind the wheel doesn’t depend on whether a person is made of sugar and spice or snips and snails. It depends on how committed that person is to being a good driver.

Kayla realizes this. So as she collects her drivers permit and thinks about trying for her license, she imagines the future.

“At first, I’ll be really focused,” she says. “As I get more comfortable, I could start to do things that aren’t so good.”

Honesty is good. But not so much if your father is seated right next to you. It’s not exactly what the elder Minkowsky wanted to hear. He wants a promise – a vow that his daughter will not try to send and read text messages when she’s behind the wheel. A promise that she will remember the importance of concentration.

“Don’t worry,” she says, just like every teenager in the world assures somebody who worries about them.

But her father is a high ranking police official. If Kayla is involved in a crash, it’s a good bet he’ll check her cell phone records to see if it was in use at the time of the wreck.

You don’t have to be a cop to pay that kind of attention to a kid’s driving habits, Minkowsky says. Every parent can monitor the driving behavior of their kids in similar ways. And it doesn’t matter if those kids are boys or girls.

In Maine, drivers with permits and those with intermediate licenses are forbidden to use a cell phone at all while driving. Beyond that, you’re free to yack all you want behind the wheel. Text Miranda and congratulate her on the great insurance quote. Send your buddy Brandon a funny photo to cheer him up. Try to glance up at the road once in a while, though, because chances are good a young lady named Abbie will be bearing down on you.

She hasn’t changed at all.

“I am by no means bragging,” she says of her questionable driving habits. “But I can’t drive 55.”

Teen driving: Facts and statistics

Fatalities

• Motor vehicle crashes are the No. 1 cause of death among teens in the U.S.

• The fatality rate for drivers age 16 to 19 is four times that of drivers age 25 to 69 years.

• The crash fatality rate (fatalities/100,000 population) is highest for 16- to 17-year-olds within the first six months after getting their license — and remains high through age 24.

• The top three predictors for fatality are non-use of seat belts, teen drivers and roads with speed limits of 45 mph or higher.

• Approximately two-thirds of teen passenger deaths (ages 13 to 19) occur when other teenagers are driving.

Crashes

• In their first year on the road, teens are almost 10 times more likely to be in a crash.

• 20 percent of 11th-graders reported being in a crash as a driver in the past year.

• 25 percent of 9th-graders report being in a crash as a passenger in their lifetimes.

• Crash risk increases incrementally with each mile per hour over the speed limit.

• Current data on crashes involving 16-year-old drivers shows that having multiple teenage passengers in the vehicle is twice as likely to cause a fatal crash as alcohol-impaired driving.

• Crashes are more common among young drivers than any other age group. In the United States, 1 in 4 crash fatalities involve someone 16 to 24 years old, nearly twice as high as other age groups.

Parents’ influence

• 66 percent of teens say they care about their parents’ opinion on cell phone use while driving.

• 56 percent of teens rely on their parents to learn how to drive.

Speeding

• Nearly half of teens report having seen passengers encouraging drivers to speed at least sometimes.

• Half of teen drivers report driving 10 miles per hour over the speed limit at least sometimes.

Cell phone use

• Nine out of 10 teens reported it was common to see teens driving while talking on a cell phone.

Seat belt use

• Teens have the lowest seat belt use rates of any age group.

• 65 percent of teens consistently wear their seat belts as both a driver and passenger.

• Six out of 10 drivers ages 16 to 20 who were killed in crashes were unrestrained.

• Almost two out of three teens killed as occupants of motor vehicles are unrestrained.

Substance abuse

• Teens are actually less likely than adults to get behind the wheel after drinking, but when they do, their risk of crashing is far greater.

• 53 percent of teens report having seen substance use behind the wheel at least sometimes.

Sources:

stokes.chop.edu/programs/injury/files/PCPS_Reports/1289teen.pdf

pediatrics.aappublications.org

On their first year on the road, teens are almost 10 times more likely to be in a crash, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. State Farm insurance company polled the teens themselves about what they observe when they see other teens driving.

75 percent see peers driving fatigued

90 percent see passenger behavior that distracts the driver

20 percent of 11th-graders report being in a crash as a driver in the past year

66 percent say they care about their parents’ opinion on cell phone use while driving

56 percent rely on their parents to learn how to drive

Source: State Farm