Sexism Is Alive And Well (But Let A Woman Drive And She’ll Run It Over)

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

The only thing worse that a Sunday Driver is a Lady Driver (that is, if you are unwilling to print racial epithets).

Many of our prejudices have some basis in fact, which is why I was so interested to read the Daily Mail’s informative investigation into why women are such bad drivers.

A market research firm polled 3000 men in the UK and found that 2/3 of them felt safe driving with their wives and girlfriends.

Wait, sorry, the story (called Road To Hell) actually reported that one third of men don’t feel safe with their partner driving, and:

One in ten said he had been forced to grab the steering wheel as his other half took her eyes off the road and careered towards the central reservation.

Thank God those women were driving with men they could rely on to yank the steering wheel from their hands and drive them to safety! While it may be scary that 10% of women constantly drive into the other lane, it is nice to know that there are big strong men around who are assertive enough to decide that they are better drivers (from the passenger seat).

In fact, it’s awfully kind of them to risk their lives by letting us drive at all, giving us the veneer of control.

The men were also sweet enough to give us pointers about how to improve our driving. Apparently we fall down in certain areas:

Men’s biggest complaints were that women are too easily distracted by children, scenery or other motorists…

Braking too late was the second most common complaint, while braking too hard came in sixth. Not braking at all surprisingly didn’t make the top ten.

That is surprising. Personally, I never use them because I am too afraid of scuffing my high heels.

The study also found that one in five couples argues about their partner’s driving skills. The men said:

Most feel they are better drivers than the women in their lives.

They believe they concentrate a lot better, read road situations more quickly and clearly and have better reactions.

The women said nothing, because while they could find 3000 men willing to talk about driving I guess the ladies were too distracted to concentrate, because none of them were polled.

Surveys have been known to betray biases, so it’s great that they are also able to provide some objective data:

The claim that women don’t concentrate as well as they should behind the wheel may have some merit.

A study last month revealed that women put in more claims for collisions on roundabouts and hitting cars from behind.

That settles that!

While men are involved in more accidents, have more head-on collisions, are more likely to hit crash barriers or trees or drive up and down embankments, they are still clearly the better drivers.

It’s too bad the journalist who wrote this story was too bashful to include his name in the byline. I guess he just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t inundated by fan-mail.