There is a remarkable amount of talk about women drivers. The usual accusations: too slow, can't park, too panicky.
It is believed that every woman driver, without exception, sucks. There are still some countries where insurance companies refuse to cover women drivers. There are books dedicated to the subject. Example: "28 Days: What your cycle reveals". We understand, the book says, you have menstrual cycle, you poor girl. It isn't your fault that PMS makes you take the wrong lane, it consoles. But also suggests that anyone with lower levels of oestrogen is bound to be a better driver.
There are tons of "humour" websites with photographs of bizarre accidents and cars stupidly parked inside pedestrian subways, and a caption in capital letters reading "Yes! It's a woman!!" Some driving schools in Chennai too offer women learners longer classes so they don't hit the road in a hurry. The nicer people empathize with this innate incapacity to drive: maybe she's born with confusion about gears.
Yes, bad women drivers do overtake from the inside, they do maintain irritatingly low speeds on highways, they do take ages to park. But the bad male drivers (yes, they do exist) do the same things without being bumped/rushed/yelled off the road for their road skills, or alleged lack of them.
An Australian Transport Safety Bureau's website makes an interesting observation from accident statistics involving men and women drivers. The national toll is decreasing, they say, but the number of women drivers killed and hospitalised is increasing. "This is due to an increase in the number of women obtaining drivers' licences and an increase in the amount of travel they are undertaking." If there are more women figuring in the accident statistics, it doesn't immediately mean they're getting worse by the minute. It just means more women drivers are now included in the total count.
Busy as we are shaking our heads ruing "these women drivers", we forgive those men who would take sharp swerves around wrong sides in peak hour traffic to say, "Madam, what are you doing?" Whatever we might say about women at the wheel, it is hardly an equal road for her and her male counterpart. The teenaged boy shifting gears lurchingly isn't offered a Traffic Rules manual at the next signal. The man on the cell phone driving in the two-wheeler lane doesn't get knocked on his bumper by angry motorists. When the call-taxi always in a hurry whizzes past a red light, no one yells expletives about the driver's flawed genes. And no male driver has to try and block out the lurid gaze of the woman in front, twisting her rear-view mirror for a better look at his chest.
Update: Some phew-ness here.
5 comments:
Here's an interesting tit-bit..more women die in road crashes because the harness is usually not made with the female body structure in mind. This was the topic of some TRB lecture I had attended. What about the the fact that an alcohol level of lower than 0.08 (which is the legal limit) might also be too much for a petite woman?
I thoroughly sympathise with most women in the drivers seat; allthough as one of the very few women driving a stick shift in this country I tend get away with a "look dude, I drive a stick" attitude when sexist remarks are made.
I have always found myself being driven around by women, and presently by my wife, and I can say they are better and much more considerate drivers.
All this fuming...Looks like u got busted driving your car in the wrong lane... :p
Guys seem to agree that the main problem with women drivers is that they are indecisive (There are exceptions as always, but this is the general opinion).They seem to take forever to make a move on the road - do I or don't I? Plus, I've had some really mindnumbing experiences with stick-shift women drivers as well.How do I put this - they MESH.
Anyway - now that we have Danica Patrick, women drivers can rest easy :-).
I'll let her rev my engine anyday.
Nice to see a blog post on this. This is one of my pet peeves.I recently read a statistical survey of crashes and gender distribution. After reading the numbers, one realizes that this is largely a case where perception and stereotype overtakes reality.Here in the US I see a lot of women drivers who drive schoolbuses, UPS trucks etc. Acc to it over long distances the male drivers have an equivalent number of crashes.A bad driver is a bad driver irrespective of gender. Protectionist family attitudes towards women driving (atleast in India and the Indian community here) is a huge factor. If in terms of no of tickets and gender I find more males have speeding tickets than females here.
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