Women Drivers

This is intended to be mostly tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely. I recognize that men do stupid things when they're driving too, particularly when it comes to aggressive driving, and that there are plenty of women who are very good drivers.

But, when my wife and I are driving somewhere and someone does something stupid, I will often make the prediction that the driver is a woman, usually in the form of an epithet, "Woman driver." It does not please my wife that I am right about 90% of the time.

I will suggest that, as a whole, although not at the individual level, women drive differently than men. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are worse drivers, or that they are the cause of more accidents than men. I haven't seen the data but I wouldn't be surprised to find that men are more likely to be involved in an accident than women. But it's for different reasons.

Men are more likely to drive aggressively. As a young man, I was rather proud of my aggressive driving. Every car that I could get ahead of was a win for me, even if we were side by side at the next traffic light. It wasn't that I was in such a hurry or even that I was an aggressive person. That just made driving fun for me. Twenty years as a paramedic has pretty much cured me of that, however.

Aggressiveness, as well as the fact that there are probably more men on the road than women, would likely lead to a greater potential of an accident from a male driver, particularly men under forty.

Women, however, treat the roads like they do the aisles in the local grocery store. If they want to stop and look at something, they will do so, blissfully unaware or not caring about the line of cars backed up behind them.

Women see no problem in driving the speed limit in the fast lane, while the regular flow of traffic has to go around them on the right. They probably wonder why guys feel the need to honk their horns all the time.

There seems to be differences in depth perception. When someone pulls out in front of me, forcing me to brake to avoid a collision, ninety percent of the time it will be a woman. My wife does the same thing and it drives me nuts. Either she can't make a reasonable judgement based on the speed of the car coming toward her and the distance it is from her, or she just thinks that it's up to them to watch out for her. Guys are less likely to do that, although they might pull out because they think they can make it.

Women are more likely than guys to think that their car has to come to a complete stop, and pause for thirty seconds, before making a turn into a driveway or parking lot.

The same is true when they are exiting a parking space. Since they refuse to back into the parking space like a normal person, when they back out of the parking space, blocking passage from anyone going in either direction, there is a long pause before they put it in drive and get out of the way. I like to imagine they are frantically paging through the owner's manual, trying to figure out how to get it in Drive. "It's the one with the D, lady!"

Men, on the other hand, particularly young men, will often drive like the assholes they are. They will drive aggressively, inserting their car into every opening that they think they can fit into, getting angry with anyone who takes the advantage that they would have taken themselves.

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking with it, unless everyone gets really mad about it.

 

A few years ago, the Maine State Police reported that more than 70% of distracted driving citations were given to female drivers, so women may be more likely to make or take cellphone calls while driving.

 

You're right because when it's not a woman, there's a good chance that it's an old man.

That's because aggressive driving is more dangerous than annoying driving. I am thinking the cellphone thing might go a ways toward balancing the numbers, though.

 

Actually, most states require that you move to the right lane if people are having to go around you, in effect reserving the left-hand lane for the flow of traffic. In many states, including Maine and, I think, Texas, the left-hand lane is often reserved for passing only, the effect being that if you're not going fast enough to pass cars, you need to stay to the right, whatever the speed limit is.

Where there are more than two lanes, I generally stay in the middle. I don't want to go as fast as a lot of these people are but neither do I want to poke along at the speed limit or below. I generally drive about five miles above the posted speed limit, and more people pass me than not. We have a 75 mph speed limit in Maine but, as I frequently drive south of Maine, that's about the speed that most people drive when the posted limit is 60 or 65.

 

In Maine, we only have to do that when there is a cop there. Regular citizens can be run over at will.