Laura on Life

A case for women drivers

By Laura Snyder

[August 22, 2008]  Finally, a study has been done that proves what women all over the world have known since the dawn of automobiles. Men, on the average, are much worse drivers than women.

I am, of course, a woman, so I am slightly biased on this issue, but let's face it, it's true. However, it is obvious that most men think they drive better than anyone (just ask them), and they have made it their sacred duty to correct the driving habits of everyone else on the road. This is done by using various dubious methods that are annoying at best and, at worst, dangerous.

For example, to encourage a slowpoke to drive faster, our most inferior drivers will tailgate so close to the car in front of them that if the slowpoke was to slow down further because of, say, a goat crossing the road, the tailgater would then be dining on tailpipe and occupying the slowpoke's trunk space until the paramedics could pry him out. Of course, no matter what his insurance company says, it would be the slowpoke's fault for slamming on his brakes when it was plain to see that someone was so close behind him.

The slowpoke may be in the category of inferior drivers as well. The only way to snap these guys out of their daydreams of being Jessica Simpson's bodyguard (dream on) is to pass them. But, when you are parallel to their car, assuming there is no goat, they speed up until you have to go 80 mph to get around them, and then they call you a maniac.

Then there are those guys who never actually grip the steering wheel. They simply rest their hands on it as if the car can drive itself and the driver is simply there for moral support.

I remember my dad teaching me how to drive. He told me to "palm the wheel" when I was turning. This was in the days when power steering was not so widespread. My mom had to use all of her strength to turn the wheel and, as a result, she often looked like she was giving our old Buick CPR. My dad thought she looked silly and wanted to teach me the "right way." I just didn't want to give any car I was driving that much freedom. I learned the hard way that if you give a jalopy an inch, it's going to get you into an accident. So I hold on to the wheel.

I was driving my family home from a weekend trip to the beach. It was a three-hour drive. My husband had hurt his gas pedal leg, so he wasn't able to sit in the driver's seat, but that didn't stop him from telling me how to drive.

There was a particularly trying section of the trip where I was following a car that was going about 10 mph under the speed limit. It drove my husband nuts to be behind this guy, but what really put him over the edge is that I was not in any hurry to pass him. Every time he thought it was clear, he'd say, "Punch it!"

I've learned to ignore these helpful hints and instead simply obeyed the traffic rules: those insignificant little things like "Do Not Pass" signs, solid yellow lines and the rule that says to "never pass a car when there is oncoming traffic, no matter what your passenger says." I never read that in a driving manual, but it was clearly implied.

As far as I was concerned, the guy wasn't going so slow that I needed to put unnecessary stress on me or the engine. I'd just wait for the right moment.

Finally, the driver ahead of us flipped on his right turn signal and slowed down as if to turn into a driveway. I started to pass him on the left and then he apparently decided that it was the wrong driveway. He sped up. I got a good look. Yes, it was a man. By now, a car had come up over the hill and I, being in the left lane, trying to pass an idiot, was in imminent danger of a head-on collision. I was forced to "punch it!" He probably thought I was a maniac.

My husband certainly did. After the danger had passed, he laughed at me. "You had all those chances to pass him and you decided to punch it when he was going to turn anyway."

I told him I only had two options after the other driver forgot where his driveway was: "I could have sped up and followed through on my action, which is what I did. Or I could have slammed on my brakes, swung in behind the undecided driver, honked like a lunatic, and flipped him the bird ... which is what you would've have done."

Simply more proof that women drivers have evolved.

[By LAURA SNYDER]

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