Women vs Men Drivers: Come on, we all know who's the better driver. Poll.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Why do I all of a sudden think I’m walking into a viper lair? I’ll tread lightly.

Ok this is a poll for all those men and women out there who have a gripe with the way their SO drives. I don’t care if you are in a college relationship or if you’ve been married for 20 years, I want to hear your take on your SO’s driving ability or lack there of.

Men, have you heard one or more of these phrases coming from your right (or left in the UK):

[sub]Brake Lights…[/sub] … Brake Lights … BRAKES!!!

or

Honey slow down…we’re not in a rush…

and

SLOW DOWN!! WHAT ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!!! [sub] when I 'm only going 50 in a 45 mph[/sub]

or

Get off his ass!! You are always riding peoples asses. One day they are going to slam on their brakes and I’ll be dead!! Then how would you feel?

How about you Lady’s? Ever hear things like this from your SO’s or husbands:

HHUUUUU!!! grabs dash board and steps on imaginary brake on passenger side floor

Good God! You almost hit that guy!!

or

Hey Honey? Why is it that when I go 85 you scream and claw at my arm, but when you are going 85 like right now, it’s ok?

and

“Honey, turn here…” drives 40 feet past the street you were supposed to turn onto and says “Oh that street?”

or

Should you be going 50 in third?
Recently, we have been taking my wife’s car (03’ Jetta GTI) to and from weekend destinations. She doesn’t like the Bulkyness of my Avalanche. I have noticed a marked increase in her ahem “bitchiness” since I have been driving. I drive normally at a slightly higher rate of speed. Say 74 in a 65mph. She hates it when I go over 70. I may have a slight case of ADD, but I digress, I have always driven like this. I’ve never got in an accident.
But for some reason my wife thinks I am about to kill her every time we drive lately.

Can someone shed some light on this? Are there marked differences in male and female driving habits? Anyone know of a study? What are you experiences with driving with your SO?

*mind you I have been driving with my wife for 7 years…

2

I am a (usually) very laid back driver. I never speed more than 3 or 4 mph, also follow all the rules, never tailgait, etc. Never been in a wreck that was my fault, either.
Hubby tends to tailgait, and that drives me up a wall. My first wreck, I was rear-ended. I am very punchy about that. (Not to mention it ticks me off to no end when I’m being tailgaited). Sometimes I don’t feel like he pays enough attention to what he’s doing.
He’s never told me any gripes about my driving…

3

Ahh yes! the spousal automotive abuse thread… I commute with my wife everyweek from Southern Vermont to Boston. We have a condo in Newton, but work in Boston for most of the week. Then back to VT…She say’s I drive waaay to fast, yet as Phlosphr pointed out, I feel quite at ease. Then when she drives she flies, going sometimes 85 mph. :rolleyes: I’ll never understand.

4

Ayup. Pretty much the exact opposite of liirogue.

I’m a very conservative driver, but my wife speeds, tailgates, and my favorite - what I call the “Oo, shiney!”

She has an attention span of about four seconds, and pretty things off the side of the road attract her attention. Thus, she drifts into other lanes and off the road and up people’s asses while looking at the “Oo, shiney!”

If she doesn’t kill me in a crash, I’ll die of a heart attack.

5

I admit, I’m a high speed, somewhat agressive driver. I’ll tail you if you’re in the left lane with a 50 car gap in front of you and I can’t go around. Good thing my SO is pretty much the same (she doesn’t drive) she’ll urge me to go faster, or start cussing out the typical granny drivers we have around here.

I think anyone too worried about their own well being, to the point that you’ll endanger others by not following the flow of traffic, should be only allowed to take the bus.

My first, and last, experience with a women driver was in highschool. We were in a convoy and this girl I knew was driving. We take a normal right turn and I notice we kept on turning right into the ditch…after a rough bump and some flying dirt we straighten out…I asked what happend and she told me she wasn’t paying attention…she was following a tissue box with her eyes that started to move across the dash as she made the turn!

6

My wife is perfectly happy driving on the freeway at 45 mph in third gear. One reason why we got her an automatic transmission…

On the other hand, there haven’t been any women behind the wheels of the cars in any accidents I’ve been in, so I shouldn’t really complain too much.

7

Makes you wonder how many they’ve caused though. I have seen several accidents result from a female driver doing something she shouldn’t be doing…only thing was, her car didn’t physically touch anyone, thus she wasn’t held liable.

8

My wife and I are both good drivers, very comfortable relaxing with the other behind the wheel. I do more of the driving when we are together, guess its the manly thing.

9

Oh yeah! The biggest turn on! An aggressive female driver who knows how to drive! Oooohhhh yeah!

10

My only complaint about Mrs. Gaffer’s driving has nothing to do with her ability (she is an excellent driver, just like Rain Man).

No, the problem is the goddamn cell phone. She talks way too much on the phone while she’s driving.

11

Yeah, like mini-skirted high-heel nurses in heat, supermodels with roommates that like to have 3-ways and other non-existent female creatures.

My wifes driving scares the shit out of me. She just doesn’t “see” things. A couple of examples: Was driving our HUGE BLACK MONSTER TRUCK (with her personalized plate, no less!) with a HUGER, BIGGERER MORE MASSIVE GATE strapped to the roof. I pull into the parking lot of the supermarket on the way home and see her in the family car just pulling out of a spot. I drive right up behind her, honking and flashing my lights trying to get her attention to see what she just bought (so I don’t buy the same shit). She somehow misses this. I follow her all the way out to the highway, lights flashing and honking (remember, this is a HUGE MONSTER TRUCK WITH HER PERSONALIZED PLATE ON THE FRONT!!) and ZOOM! Off she goes, never having seen me. In-freakin’-creadable!

Another day: I’m zipping off to lunch. I’m in the super-duper family car (very distinctive in these parts, and again, with a personalized plate on the front). I spot her coming the other way down the street and I wave and immediatly flip a U turn and get behind her (and with our car, this would be hard to not notice!). I flash lights. I pull up next to her and wave. I stay next to her all the way to the stoplight, waving all the way. I can see my son in his car seat smiling at me. Wife is oblivious to all this. Didn’t see me till we stopped at the light.

WTF?? How do you NOT see whats going on around you when you drive? How do you somehow miss someone who is close enough to absolutly run you off the road if they wanted too?

Just doesn’t pay attention and it scares me to death!

There is more, too, but I have to get to work!

12

Allright gatopescado, your post has inspired me. I tend not to relate personal family tales here but this one was too good.

My parents are building a deck and had gone to one of the big home stores to pick up a load of deck material (it is some kind of composite stuff that looks like wood). My mother had driven my parent’s truck to the store in order to meet my dad right after work (he was in his work car). So they bought the decking, loaded it up, and made plans to meet at this particular restaurant for dinner. The deck material comes in 2"x 6" x 10’ lengths so it extended quite a bit out of the bed of the truck. As you can all probably surmise, as my mom guns the truck across the shallow drainage between the driveway and the street. the entire load slides out of the back of the truck into this very busy street. My dad, who is behind her in his car, jumps out and a couple of very kind people stop to help him. They manage, in record time no doubt, to stack all 60 pieces of this stuff on the sidewalk, the entire time keeping an eye out for my mom. Well, she is nowhere to be seen. My dad finally calls her on the cell phone and she is sitting in the truck at the restaurant waiting for my dad, oblivious to the fact that the entire load of material is sitting on a sidewalk a couple of miles away!

13

My husband is the better driver by far,* but the car insurance rate (that I pay) went up a notch when he got a ticket. I’ve never had a ticket for a moving violation – not in 43 years of driving.

*(That’s why he was able to drive backwards at 55 miles an hour down a semi-main artery – for over a mile. I could not keep up with him in the car behind. That’s because I was laughing so hard. But that was the day I knew I had to marry this crazy man.)

If you ask a car insurance company who is the better risk – male or female, they rate females as the safer drivers as a whole. I don’t know if this is still done, but 25 years ago male drivers in their early twenties had to pay considerably more for their insurance.

Going with the flow of traffic is fine unless the flow is over the speed limit. What’s the rush anyway? What will you do with the extra three minutes you have saved by rushing home from work?

14

Sure, but only antidotally, mind you. 8 out of ten drivers weaving recklessly in and out of traffic, sans turn signals, are guys. 9 out of ten people who don’t do the speed limit then race you when you try to pass them are guys. 6 out of 10 people riding your ass when you are going at or slightly above the speed limit are guys. 9 out of ten people who nearly hit you when trying to manuve a mini-van through parking lots are chicks. 7 out of ten people who nearly run into you when they throw the car in reverse without looking back are chicks too. Men= agressive. Women= not paying enough attention/flustered. I fear the day they let monkey butlers get licenses.

15

His biggest gripe about my driving is that I drive too slow. I go the speed limit and rarely 5 miles over it. He is a speed demon who does not drive stick.

16

Phlosphr. ::sigh:: This is asking for trouble. You know it.

That said: women are generally considered better vehicle insurance risks for a reason. We’re not as prone to show off.
However; I drove an ambulance for a living at one point. I drive like I still have that cherry sitting on top of my car. Plus, I learned to drive from my dad, a now-retired CHP officer. You get the picture. My husband, in contrast, drives like an old woman who can’t see over the steering wheel. This should give you insight into the joys that are our daily commute in the SF Bay Area. His pet peeve: When someone drives right up my ass, it pisses me off to the point that I slam on my brakes. Hard. And yet, he insists that I do all the driving. You tell me.

PS to Elfkin ; anecdotally

17

This reminds me of this Joke:

My name is John. While driving to work this morning I looked over my shoulder to the left and there was this woman in a brand new Mustang, with her face up next to the rear view mirror putting on her eye makeup. I glanced away for a few seconds, and when I looked back, there she was halfway over in my lane still working on her eye liner.

It scared me so badly I dropped my electric shaver, which knocked the Krispy Kreme out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car with my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my cell phone away from my ear, which fell into my Starbucks coffee between my legs, splashed and burned BIG BOB and the TWINS, ruined the phone and disconnected an important call.

DARN THOSE WOMEN DRIVERS!!!

18

My first wife was a pretty good driver; drove me to drink in short order and never changed gears. Present wife likes being a passenger, but has various irrelevent comments to make such as, “that was a red light”, “that cop looks pissed”, etc. My standard reply is “If you want to drive, get in the back seat”.

19

Nope, I mean antidotally. The best cure for a lackluster poll is arbitrary statistics:D Or maybe not…

20

My theory is that women are just as “bad” as men behind the wheel. We just don’t get caught as often.

Granted, a certain amount of the high insurance rates for younger men is that whole testosterone thing. When I was a teen, I was as much as a speed demon as any of my peers but I was smart about it. I didn’t burn rubber in front of the high school nor did I act nuts with a squad car behind me.

I do most of the driving in our family because I am typically a bad rider. My husband is not a bad driver, I repeat, I am a bad RIDER. Just your basic control freak thing. :slight_smile: