Women and gay men are 'worst drivers'

[phoenix_fire]

Is anyone willing to consider the possibility that driving competence is related more to practice and experience than to latent ability?

[Kite]

Quote by: Kite Honestly, This study makes no sense to me. Driving isn't a god given talent like being able to turn yourself into a human pretzel or good eyesight, its a skill, a learned skill. You learn how to operate a car, the rules of the road, and then you practice. The amount you have practiced and how well you were taught has alot more to do with your aptitude as a driver than your sex or sexual orientation. For example, I am a heterosexual male, but when I'm driving to someplace new or confusing, I get a bit stressed out.

Just in case you missed it

[Nemiroff]

its your attitude, guys are more aggressive, which in turn gives them more practice.

also guys in general played more video games and are more used to fast paced situations with multiple things one needs to concentrate on. not to mention the basics of driving one can learn from driving games themselves.
Girls can potentially drive just as well, there are girl drivers in nascar, but most girls rather take it slow, stop more often, and just be more careful in general, unless of course they need to put on makeup.

once again some girls are crazy too, and well some guys do like putting on make up as well as driving safely.

[Jack]

not to mention the basics of driving one can learn from driving games themselves.

No doubt some of the kids in my neighborhood picked up their driving styles from Grand Theft Auto.

[phoenix_fire]

Lol. I would agree. Driving through some of the suburbs around my city and my parents' sometimes reminds me of a street racing, capture-the-flag kinda game...and I'm the one (unwittingly) with the flag!

[ruksak]

Quote by: phoenix_fire Is anyone willing to consider the possibility that driving competence is related more to practice and experience than to latent ability?

Sure. But this does not change my opinion. In general, on a whole, women cannot operate a vehicle with near as much skill as can a man. Our society demands that this statement must be rooted in sexism. Then again, our society demands that a golf anchor be fired for making a joke about a half-black golfer.

[Nemiroff]

Is it so hard to accept that driving skillfully doesn't necessarily mean safe driving.

If you were for some reason trying to drive away from someone chasing and shooting you, and you have to weave through traffic, all these "great, accidentless, annoying, cautious drivers (male or female) won't stand a chance, so much for their supposed "skill"

[Nono]

Quote by: ruksak But this does not change my opinion.

Nothing factual seems to.
Face it, sak, your licked. Your licked by the insurance-rate reality, which you can't argue away.

Asians, blacks and women cannot aggressively drive a vehicle with skill.

Got anything scientific to back this up? Or is it just so much ranting froth on your lips?

Sorry, the truth hurts.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Nono Face it, sak, your licked. Your licked by the insurance-rate reality, which you can't argue away

Nemiroff explained it, I'll elaborate.

Making the choice to drive aggressively and dangerously is a manifestation of machismo. Also, it is not a barometer of skill. Because when one chooses to test their skill by pushing the limits, they go beyond what is safe. Therefor causing more accidents. Therefor being subject to higher insurance rates. As well, driving at high speeds, racing and the like, result in far more devastating accidents.

Of of course when I reference skill on a general scale, I do so with disregard toward extenuating special circumstance i.e. choosing to push the limits of skill.

The only viable realm in which skill is tested on a norm would be within motor-sports. A sport in which we see maybe 1 out of 10,000 drivers being anything but a white male.

[phoenix_fire]

Two words:

Tiger.

Woods.

[Matt W]

A golfer? Really?

I'd have said 'Lewis Hamilton', myself, but there you go...

As a side note:

The only viable realm in which skill is tested on a norm would be within motor-sports. A sport in which we see maybe 1 out of 10,000 drivers being anything but a white male.

The question that has to be asked, though, is how many non-whites and females have had access to the sporting levels in recent years?

[gela]

The only viable realm in which skill is tested on a norm would be within motor-sports. A sport in which we see maybe 1 out of 10,000 drivers being anything but a white male.

I'd call this a result of our culture, not a result of the skills of the different genders. We're taught from child hood that men drive race cars
eg.

Fisher Price's Power Wheels. At the moment there are only six cars on their website (out of the 29 shown) that are pictured with female drivers. They are either pink Barbie cars or have Dora the Explorer all over them, because apparently little girls don't want to drive a car that doesn't have a trademarked character on it? Compare that with the other versions that all have boys driving (a few have boys driving and girls in shotgun, but not a single one of a little girl driving around a male friend). No wonder there are so few female race car drivers.

Source:
Evil Slutopia: Sexist Toys You Should Avoid This Holiday Season

[Kite]

Look at the culture that surrounds NASCAR racing. Backwoods, redneckish type people. A culture where women are still mostly relegated to being childbearers and housewives. Also, forgive me if I doubt that information from a site called 'Evil Slutopia' is unbiased and completely factual.

[gela]

Also, forgive me if I doubt that information from a site called 'Evil Slutopia' is unbiased and completely factual.

lol, yeah, but the actual statistics about the cars on the fisher price site are true. Their opinions would be a tiney bit biased...
Just a little.

[Kite]

Those power wheels cars aren't exactly a surefire way to improve your driving skill in the future. A friend of mine lost his license for doing 110 in a 40. This same friend backed over me with his power wheels jeep when I got out to push when we were kids. He never let me drive it, and I've never even been pulled over.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Kite Look at the culture that surrounds NASCAR racing. Backwoods, redneckish type people.

Guilty as charged .

Actually I despise NASCAR. I find it entirely disinteresting to watch my fellow rednecks make left turns at 175 MPH for 4 hours.

I base my opinion almost entirely upon anecdotal evidence. When I see a driver make a dumb mistake, it is often a women. When I see a driver do something aggressive and dangerous, it is often a man.

[Dunfunkin']

Well, what an emotional topic this thread has turned out to be!

Now I have to confess a vested interest in this subject. For the last 10 years I have worked as a driver coach (as opposed to a coach driver), helping drivers of any experience to develop their driving/observation skills and modify attitudes using a mix of on-road and track-based sessions. It has been a highly interesting and fulfilling period in my life.

A good way to start the day, especially when a reasonable sized group is involved, is to take a straw poll containing 2 questions:

1. On a scale of 1-10, how do you rate your skill as a driver? (1 being the minimum)
2. On the same scale, how much do you enjoy driving?

The results tend to be consistent. Male drivers - of any age - largely give themselves a skill score of 7-9, with the occasional 'perfect driver' revealing himself. The enjoyment score is normally marginally lower, say 6-8.

By contrast, women generally score themselves lower. 5-7 in skill/ 3-7 in enjoyment.

Personally, I always know I'm in for a tough time when saddled with somebody who scores themselves 10 for skill & 1 for driving enjoyment ...

But the crucial point here is that almost everybody asked scores themselves above average. Driving really is an emotive topic & we all get very defensive about our ability as drivers. When asked to rate their skill as dancers, for example, the same groups of people are quite happy to score themselves 1 or 2 every time!

Some observations arising from my experiences:

Men are generally braver drivers than women. During track sessions, it is often easier to provoke a male driver into compromising control of a car than females, who usually less willing to step outside comfort zones. Having said that, they do listen better & often learn more as a result.

On road, men are also braver than women. This, I would contend, is by no means always a good thing! There is probably a link to the difference in insurance premiums here.

It boils down to attitude. Men are more likely to drive competitively than are women, and often at the most inappropriate times. Just watch the traffic light races next time you're commuting into work and observe that the participants are overwhelmingly blokes! Talk about confusing activity with achievement.

I could go on, but I usually charge for this stuff, so if you want more, pay me!

[Kite]

Quote by: ruksak Guilty as charged . Actually I despise NASCAR. I find it entirely disinteresting to watch my fellow rednecks make left turns at 175 MPH for 4 hours.

I agree x3

I base my opinion almost entirely upon anecdotal evidence. When I see a driver make a dumb mistake, it is often a women. When I see a driver do something aggressive and dangerous, it is often a man.

Well you see, since both result in accidents I lump all of that into one kind of behavior: Bad Driving.

[ruksak]

Quote by: Kite Well you see, since both result in accidents I lump all of that into one kind of behavior: Bad Driving.

I suppose that is a fair assessment. Considering that the only time in my life that I almost died was because of a man talking on his cell phone and making a left turn right in front of me, almost causing a devastating accident.

It's just that the women I have known in my life, all of them, are terrible drivers. My ex-wife would tailgate at an almost comically close distance, even after rear ending people three times. My girl friend drives with both feet (Right foot on the gas and left foot on the brake). She never realized that the god damn brake light was on the whole time she drove. When I pointed that out to her she had a sort of an epiphany. "Ohhh maybe thats why people are always flipping me off". (I sh*t you not about that).

My mother is the type that hits her brakes as she goes through a green light intersection, which causes people to slam on their brakes and summarily scream and curse at her.

Maybe I am just unlucky enough to have been surrounded by idiot drivers that just happen to be women.

[Nemiroff]

It's astounding, all the proof points to women being god's gift to the roads, yet everyone's experience is that women can't drive steady.

Dunfunkin seems to be to local expert on this subject if his credentials are true, but he only said how well they rate themselves, but not the general skill levels he's observed.

May I add that I brought up nascar because regardless of how much you hate it, noone can argue that they aren't skilled professional drivers... Who still crash from time to time. They are mostly white men, but living in the city, there are few differences between men of different colors and their driving ability. Except Asians, not sure why but they had a habit of almost hitting me while I'm onfoot and now that I drive in Asian heavy communities, I've almost been hit 3 times because they took a stupid wide turn while I was standing still at a red light or stop sign, I could only hope that they would start driving as slow and cautious as women.

I agree that the difference is cultural and not genetic or anything like that except perhaps perdisposed preference on what you enjoy doing.