In all the statistics I read, the most dangerous drivers usually break down as male and younger.
However, anecdotally, men who are good drivers tend to be much better drivers than women, and these men are in greater numbers.
For example, if we rated someone’s driving ability on a scale from 1-100, more men would be rated at 100 than women, while on average, men would be around 70 while women would be around 50.
Statistically, we might also be seeing a phenomenon where a small number of men are causing many, many accidents that show up in stats. For example, there’s lots of stories about individual men with 20+ drunk driving tickets.
In my personal experience, I have worked as a driving instructor. The “final exam” for my students is to drive through a shopping center during midday. Shopping centers have the highest percentage of female drivers and walkers. Usually, over a 100 yard stretch, there will be about 5-10 female walkers who don’t check the road (usually while talking on phones or pushing strollers), and 5-10 female drivers who pull into the road or back out of parking stalls without looking. Usually, my students laugh when I bring them there, but afterwards, they agree that it is the scariest place they ever drove.
I agree with you - what blows my mind is that people are driving faster and faster through parking lots. It’s something of a miracle that we can ever get out of a parking lot without a collision. I don’t know if male or female plays into it - I see women talking on the cell phones a lot, and I see men driving far too fast a lot, but neither are exclusive to a sex.
I think men and women are about equal in driving skill… when the women are paying attention.
It seems to me that I see about a 2:1 ratio of women yakking on their cell phones while driving (in the snow, in the rain, at 75 mph, while trying to exit and negotiate a toll booth, etc…)
Or, they’re messing with their kids in the back seat, or fooling with hair or makeup.
I think that basically men make deliberate stupid decisions (I CAN make that turn at 70!), while women just do distracted and unaware things.
Combine that with a lack of awareness of how to actually drive their vehicles (maybe that spatial ability?) and you have a recipe for a LOT of fender-benders and near-accidents with woman drivers.
I think part of the reason many women are less competent at driving their vehicles is this scenario:
Complicated maneuver is required (tight parking, backing in and out, whatever)
Women starts to attempt it
At least one man, sometimes more, comes over and says “let me do that for you”
Women says “No, I can do it.”
Man gets more and more insistent
Woman, trained to avoid confrontation, surrenders the keys
Man performs maneuver and hands vehicle back to the woman.
I have encountered this numerous times. Now, I don’t mind if someone offers to help, but when I say “no thanks” they need to back off. If you don’t let me actually drive my car or my pickup when will I ever learn to do it?
Worst offender was a 20-something tradesman who was convinced I could not back my pickup into a parking spot. The Boss actually had to pull him back from my truck so I could put it in gear. He was flabbergasted I managed to back into the spot in a straight line. Yeah, jerkwad, who do you THINK has been parking this truck for the last 8 years? I own it, I drive it.
(Yes, my pride was bruised.)
Second worst offender - one time when my parents came to visit me in Chicago my mom was insisting dad get the Festiva out of the parallel parking slot. Mom was going on and on, finally I said “Mom, who do you think parked this here last night? The tooth fairy?” Dad was in the back seat laughing quietly - mom always was an annoying passenger, the man is a saint for putting up with her riding shotgun for decades.
(Yes, my pride was bruised.)
I’m not saying that’s the whole of it, but there really is social pressure that discourages women from learning to maneuver in tight spots, drive in bad weather, or otherwise do things still perceived as “manly” driving.
This may or may not be relevant, but for quite some time now the FAA and NTSB have said their statistics show women fly better than men do, being less likely to get into an aviation accident. Now, it may be that women who fly are those who have better than average spatial abilities (it is rather important) and this affects that statistics, but it is food for thought.
Just to add a bit, the statistic applies to men in their early twenties riding between 1 and 4 am, I think. It works out to almost a fatality every 2 000 miles, which I agree sounds incredibly high. But, then again, at that hour, we are probably not dealing with many long journeys down empty highways. Probably more often drunken revellers making their way home.
I’m sure that the figure is very high in comparison to the norm but that high?
This may well be one of those WTF? moments in statistics. It seems so unlikely but it may well be a “perfect storm” of contributing factors that push the death rate into the stratosphere.
If you define good driver as being able to drive like a Nascar driver in 5 o’clock rush hour then men would have the advantage. I’ve play chicken with these types almost daily basis and I always know that I have an advantage over them when I see them with there significant other in the passenger seat; as I have often watched them get there ass chewed out by them as they fad back in my rearview mirror.
Fewer women drive like assholes on a regular basis; although they can rise to the occasion.
I am a huge fan of racing and I’m pretty sure that the female drivers on the Indy circuit have as excellent reflexes as the male drivers. The lack of female race drivers has a hell of a lot more to do with patriarchal misogyny and racetrack politics than it does some unsubstantiated bullshit about reflexes.
Unless you can cite something that proves your statement true. :dubious:
The stereotype I heard divided people into roughly two groups: 18-year-old men who may possibly have better reflexes than everyone else due to practice/biology but are vastly vastly more likely to drive head-on into a tree at 90mph, and everyone else…
To piggyback off this with the male perspective, men are socially pressured to learn how to drive and park better. I grew up in a city and really haven’t had any great experience backing up a truck with an attached trailer, but I’ve had to do it multiple times because when I get in that situation, there’s no backing down. I remember one time I was with some guy who drove a lot of trucks, and I started to get out and have him do the backing up, since I figured he had a lot more experience with trailers. He all but called me a pussy and told me to get back in the truck.
I’m guessing nobody would have called my wife a pussy.
Also, I’ve parallel parked for several (female) strangers who go frustrated after multiple attempts and rather than figure it out they got out of the car and found the first man they could. Can you imagine that with the genders reversed? If I gave up trying to park and let a woman do it I’d never live it down.
Bottom line, I think the peer pressure associated with “macho” activities like parallel parking makes it so we’re forced to become more proficient than some of us would even care to. Unfortunately, it’s also the same force that makes men take all kinds of stupid risks behind the wheel and drives up our insurance rates.
Not really, because I don’t care enough about the answer.
What I was trying to ferret out is: is this meme about women having slower reflexes just an ignorant stereotype or is it rooted in fact somewhere? Does anyone actually have facts on this?
I’m going to dodge the question and say that while “patriarchal misogyny and racetrack politics” might play some effect in why women don’t get into the sport in the first place, the physical demands of auto racing are nothing to sneeze at. I know everyone likes to joke about fat NASCAR drivers, but driving a racecar for 3 hours is both physically and mentally exhausting, and the standard physiological differences between men and women are enough to give women an uphill battle. At an amateur level, the difference isn’t enough to justify creation of womens leagues or anything, but if you’re looking at CART/Indy, F1, NASCAR, etc, these are athletes at the top of their games.
And ironically, some men will whine that women have an unfair advantage in racing because they weigh less.
Right and the question is one of reflexes. If it’s a fact that men have better reflexes then how could any woman qualify to drive at that level of competition to begin with? They* are* all athletes at the tops of their games.
So where are the facts about driver reflexes as related to gender?
I don’t know of any study that shows a difference in reaction times but I’m pushed to think of any athletic endeavour (one that involves physical interaction or exertion and not an artistic judgement) in which females are the equal of men.
Even if there are any they are by far the exception and not the norm. I’d therefore be quite comfortable in suggesting that the best male drivers will outnumber and outperform the best female ones.
<beaten by Darth Panda with the link. link removed.>
As with everything, this really answers nothing. It may be that men generally have faster reaction times because we play more sports and whatnot. I don’t know if there’s any biological reason.
My official stance is going to be that reaction times and/or reflexes are a small part of auto racing, and that the physical endurance of the drivers is going to have the greatest effect by gender. The reflex difference, if any, is probably not all that relevant. However, an exhausted driver is going to be a worse driver, so if men are biologically better able to cope with the physical demands, men will always have an advantage.
I’ve play chicken with these types almost daily basis and I always know that I have an advantage over them when I see them with there significant other in the passenger seat; as I have often watched them get there ass chewed out by them as they fad back in my rearview mirror.