WASHINGTON (AP) — Accidents in which drivers mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brake tend to involve older female drivers in parking lots, a new government study has found.

One of the study's most striking and consistent findings was that nearly two-thirds of drivers who had such accidents were female. When looking at all crashes, the reverse is true — about 60 percent of drivers involved in crashes are male, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study noted.

Another finding: Gas pedal accidents tend to occur more frequently among drivers over age 76 and under age 20. The age disparity showed up in both an analysis of more than 2,400 gas pedal accidents in a North Carolina state crash database and an analysis of nearly 900 news reports of such crashes. In the state database, accidents were almost equally likely to involve drivers under 20 as over 76, but in news reports about 40 percent of accidents involved elderly drivers — four times as many as young drivers.

Still, drivers under 20 were the most likely age group after elderly drivers to be involved in gas pedal accidents reported by the media.