h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Worst drivers I ever saw were women (wrong way up one-ways etc. absolutely useless). Fastest drivers I ever saw were men (overtaking on blind bends because they're in such a hurry to die). Statistics show that women are safer, but my own pet theory on that one is that the statistics are produced by the insurance companies, and the policy holders are men, with the women as named drivers on the husband's policy, so that even if women do have accidents the statistics show that it was a man (the policy holder) who crashed.

Men win!
(Beats chest, says 'ugh!', retreats back into cave, satisfied with the world)

Ooh - I like the theory. Here's another one - men tend to drive far higher mileages than women, so if they have accidents at the same rate they would appear to be more unsafe.

I have absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever, but it's a good wind-up line.

On the other hand, my theory is that if men see a woman driving badly, they say "Pah, women drivers!" whereas if they see a man driving badly, they say "Pah, white van men / boy racers / reps / old men / et al!" Thus the "woman" category gets unfairly full.

To help those who want to generalise, I'll say that the fastest and most agressive drivers I know are men, whereas the most utterly dozy piece of driving I've seen was by a woman: In the outside lane of an urban dual carriageway in Sheffield, I was just slowing to stop at a red light, when a car from the left-hand road turning right failed to go to the other carriageway and came straight towards me. So I slammed on the brakes, whilst the woman (for such I now knew she was, due to the close-up now afforded me) calmly drove round me, using the right-hand-turn lane and continued the wrong way down the road until the next (or should that be previous) set of lights.

It's too difficult to say who is better out of men or women. Women like me, who (used to) drive for a living, are better drivers than most men. I've taken more tests and done more training than most of the other cabbies I worked with. I've done skid pan training, RoSPA training, I would have done the new 'taxi test' if I hadn't got this lovely shiny new italic account, and I keep up to date with the highway code. I also have extra theory books. I have never had an accident with another car that is my fault. I have, however, bumped into the odd wall because I couldn't see it. (A good reason not to move the vehicle if you can't see!)

There aren't many women, or even men like me. Mothers. I hate them. They go wandering off to the school run, in their 4 wheel drive vehicles. (I'm so glad I've managed to avoid all the deserts and marshes etc that must be all over Essex...) They park all over the yellow zigzags, half on the pavement, can't reverse, get themselves and everybody else into gridlocks and sit there stupidly waiting for someone else to move, and generally drive crap, turn suddenly and get on my nerves. Most other women don't bother me until they get to about 70. But that's all drivers really. I know they should go slowly if they need more time to react, but 15 miles an hour down the road? They need to get out of the drivers seat!!

Men - hmmm, I wouldn't say they are bad drivers, but they rush more I think. Too turned on by the technology in their car to actually pay as much attention to the road as they should be. Also too confident in their ability to drive well.

I really think this should have been teenagers/old gits, rather than men/women...

Totally agree with that.

What I will say is that slow driving aint necessarily better driving. For example my sister (not mentioning any names ) is such a timid driver that she drives at about 15 mph all the time and causes enormous tailbacks of frustrated people behind her. "I've nver had an accident" She'll say. "Aye but I've bet you've seen plenty in your rear view mirror" says another!

I believe that in Scotland the highland areas have had to put in a low speed minimum limit because of the Sunday driver/old git who cause this sort of thing - it causes fatalities up there where there are many blind bends/blind summits.

For my own personal and totally biased view: When my mother is driving, I feel safe (and, boy, the fast lane on the Autobahn is hers) while my dad driving efficiently keeps me from getting any sleep in the car. Not that he is *bad* (whatever that means), but all that *hey, there's a fifty meter gap to the car in front of us, let's speed up real quick to come close and than slam the brakes to avoid a collision - hey that was fun let's do it again* business is rather unsettling.

On the other hand, my (ex-)girlfriend was of the more impatient kind. Easily getting angry at other drivers for going only 110 kph in a 100 kph zone...

Yelbakk