Safe Speed Forums

I was talking to my boss about this, and we think that this 'need to focus on one thing' impulse is somehow related to the difference between male and female characteristics. Women may be genetically programmed to be able to handle many things at once, cooking, tidying, educating the kids, arranging social functions, talking on the mobile to friends, using the washer, setting up house-viewing etc. etc., i.e. keeping the house running. Men, though, get muddled doing this, and may be genetically programmed to do one thing - bring home meat.

I think this need to 'get into the groove' is a deep rooted reptilian brain thing that make men feel irritated if they are not able to focus on the immediate task at hand, i.e. trapping a gazelle! Any side issues must be held in abeyance until the main deed is done. The payoff for this is a feeling of 'job well done', or something like that, and I think men are genetically preordained to search for that Nirvana like state of mind.

Of course, once you know that is the underpinning, going to great lengths to achieve it is transparent and futile - that is the wonder of humanity - we can train ourselves to overrule our base instincts with rationality. You can reach the same sate of mind by listening to a nice peice of music, and save a lot of petrol money and congestion!

_________________
I stole this .sig

The post above was "split" from forum topic: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1531

I consider it to be a significantly different subject although interesting.

I'd suggest these as average differences in driving characteristics between the sexes. Individuals may vary.

Male relative characteristics:

More aggressive
More attentive
More risk taking
Better spatial judgement
More errors of judgement
Faster
More confident
More subject to peer pressure and showing off
Fewer parking scrapes

Anyone want to add to the list?

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Are you sure about the more errors of judgement? From what I can see the women drivers make quite a lot more of these, but as they are less confident they don't tend to lead to pileups. Except when its foggy...

Maybe the wording is wrong. Men more frequently make gross errors of judgement leading to bend and overtaking crashes. Maybe this is part of the "aggression" family of differences.

I think ladies make more minor errors of judgement leading to parking scrapes. This is related to spatial awareness differences.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

According to insurers male drivers start relativley dangerous and get safer. Women on the other hand stay relativley consistant through out their lives.

Statisticaly the cross over point at which men become "safer" than women is at the age of 38.

Thats according to insurance companies anyway.

Men have better spatial awareness so are better able to analyse situations in 3 dimensions. A good atribute for driving. Maybe why there are so few women in top level motorsport (cars or bikes). But it may also mean that we tend to take more risks overtaking etc.

These are just the facts. I am not saying men are better drivers than women. My wife and daughter are very good and safe drivers. And that is the most important thing.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

I think this comes under the "More risk taking" heading as well as the aggression one. Depends a bit on what was in the driver's mind when he attempted a manoeuvre that went pear shaped. "I'll show the b****** not to cut me up" is definitely aggressive, but "I'm late for work so I'll put my toe down all the way" is more like taking an inappropriate risk (though conditions at the time could allow him to drive faster than normal of course). These three things, misjudgment prone, risk prone and aggressiveness, are different sides of the same coin - er, well, they would be if there was a three sided coin . This is tricky to boil down to a few words. I think men are more likely to allow other things to take priority over safe driving, and are also less able to cope with the brain time-share needed to do this than women are.

Could be that these differences explain why females have more minor damage accidents than males, and males have more spectacular and dangerous accidents than females.

Another gender difference I've heard about, as I think I've mentioned before, is better peripheral vision in women. IIRC there's a difference in night vision as well, though I can't remember which way round it goes. How this affects things I don't know.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Ladies I think are better at multi-tasking and to provide more intense concentration in short bursts. They consequently are more able to, eg (takes cover..) use mobile phones, take children and animals in the car on short journeys.

Gentlemen have greater stamina and, as Paul says, a greater power of concentration - but are conversely less able to multiplex that concentration over separate domains. Yes they mulit-task very well on a micro level - differnt aspects of driving - car control, road surface attention - and of course the whole gamut of observation that builds up ability to contro traffic around oneself. However, on a macro level (stoping the kids from undoing belts and screaming at one another, answering a phone, opening a window just in time before Rover spews up.. ) they are almost hopeless. Yet women do this as a by-your-leave part of the school run, day in day out.

Oh - and women can't typically reverse into a fairly tight parking spot to save their lives <ducks and runs for cover>

I'd add these to the list:

Men more likely to wonder 'do these leathers/this car etc. make me look macho?'
Men more likely to wonder 'is the braking distance of the LZR100a better than the EXUSplus model?'
Men more likely to think ‘these other motorists feel envious because I have such a wonderful car/motorbike/laptop/mobile phone… (delete as appropriate)’.
Men more likely to think ‘I wish I had a better car/motorbike/laptop/mobile phone (delete as appropriate) so that I don’t have to envy these other motorists ’.
Men more likely to think ‘that bit of overtaking/cornering/braking/parking(!) has showed them up for the laggards that they are’.
Men more likely to feel they can “win” by accelerating/overtaking/cornering/braking/parking(!).
Men more likely to look at their own reflection in a shop window while passing on their car/motorbike/whatever.
Men more likely to think ‘I am indestructible today’.
Men more likely to think of “revenge scenarios” for motorists who have overtaken them.

_________________
I stole this .sig

You may be a bit out of touch. This may have been the case in the past with the 40/50 year olds but things are changing.

My 18 year old daughter is car mad. She loves car "speed" movies like “gone in 60 seconds” and “the fast and the furious”.
It is a fact that modern women are starting to show the same aggression and competitive instincts as men. More women are getting into motorcycling, and not the cruiser type either.

My wife also shows considerably higher levels of "road rage" than I do.

More and more I get cut up by 20-30 year old women driving company cars aggressively.

Its just the sign of the times. It happened with smoking and binge drinking and not it is happening with driving.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

And if we want to come up with a set of generalisations about women we could start with:

• women are more likely to choose a car on the basis of "does my bum look big in this?"
• women are more likely to check their hair or makeup in the rear view mirror while driving
• women are more likely to say "I'm just a blonde anyway, so why do I need to fill my little head with all those boring rules in the Highway Code, or understand what happens under the bonnet?"

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Mrs J wants a micra (not the new model) because it's got a friendly face Seriously though did anyone see that programme Jeremy Clarckson did on speed? They proved on the programme that women can multi task better than men, and that most men who are in high speed jobs ie formula 1, rallying and pilots are (not all though) very borring people (don't remeber why that is) The USAF has also acknowleged women can multi task better than men, making them ideal pilots. The only problem the USAF found is that women lacked a certain killer instinct (not met my mrs), and their bodies don't cope with G force as well as a mans body can.

_________________
'Detritus, get yer stoney arse over ere'

No, but they cope with a G string better than a man's body can![/quote]

_________________
I stole this .sig

So men lead in the decent to yobbo culture, and women follow up. If true, that is sad, because things would improve if men copied women more often - and no, that's not an invitation to dress up as a drag queen!

_________________
I stole this .sig

Yep...It looks like it. If anything they have overtaken us in some areas.

Not just the younger generation either. When I go out in the evening I see a lot of 40/50 somethings "living it up", more than I ever used to. People want to live life to the max more and not let their age get in the way.

Its the way culture evolves as it get more wealthy.

You cannot make time stand still. Things change all the time. Equality has its price, you cannot pick and chose the aspects you want to develope.

I am all in favour of change. It makes life more interesting, maybe more dangerous, may be not, but a lot more interesting for sure. Nature has a way of balancing thing out in the long run.

My wife is 45 this year, the same as me. Her car is due for replacement in a couple of months. She is currently has an MG ZR160 with 17 inch wheels, factory spoilers, leather etc, 0-60 in 7.4 seconds. It was her first new car and she chose it. She said that she is not going to replace it with anything that is "slower"

She also bought her first motorbike 18 months ago.

I think that women are getting more confident and self asserting. The want more from life than kids and house work. The upshot is they are getting some of the same attributes as the men in the process. We may not see some of these attributes as beneficial to "safety" but that is not our call.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

OK let me add this,

IMO the last 5 odd years (maybe longer but has become noticable) have seen a increase in what to me is the early to mid twentys woman being very agresive in her driving, and in some caess more competative than alot of younger men and certainly less courteous on the road.

Women

17-21: Nervous yet carefull and mostly courteous and the usual learning the road mistakes.

21-27(ish) - Agressive, competative, rude, prone to speeding when being competative (usually on the motorway) unlikley to show thanks or let you out, cars usually showing war wounds.

27-45: Usually safe although likes to tailgate, polite, calm, though prone to speeding in general although not excessive, .

45-60: generally unwilling to show thanks but usually will let you out, safe drivers, don`t seem to speed much, although can prone to pulling out regardless of approaching traffic distance or speed and refusing to get to road speed.

60+ a mix botch, generally carfull but slow, friendly, safe, show thanks and let you out frequently, rarley speed, but those who do tend to stick to a speed and go everywhere at it, 40 in 30`s 40 in NSL`s etc


Men

17-19: Nervous, yet cocky, unwilling to let you out, most try and drive sensibly due to insurance costs (I`m sure a statistic would show those who pay for there own insuarance and bought there own car have drastically fewer incidents), most only noticed because of the noisy modified cars and loud music so are noticed when doing something silly even if there is a MPV doing the same 40 yards ahead and can sometimes all be tarred with the same brush, prone to showing off to peers in the car, usual learning the road mistakes.

20-26: Crave more powerful cars, generally courteous to other road users although can be aggresive and competative, although again trying to keep insuance costs down.

27-40 Cocky, complacent, risk taking, now in a more powerful car so usually consistantly speeds and likes to tailgate although will let cars out of sideroads etc

40-60: Generally safe, more relaxed attitude to other road users, more willing to let you out than most, although rife with bad habits and slack driving,experience now keeps him safe.

60+ Not usually safe, rarley uses mirrors, uses inapproriate low speed, arogent, known to sometimes accelerate if a car trys to pass or flash lights in disaproval of being overtaken, how 60+ men get good statistics and good insurance premiums I don`t know.

Although this is all a sweeping genralisation also probably hipocritcal and contradicting, it is what I have observed over time and what I believe to be the average driving of the above age groups.

My observations may or may not reflect the generation of the individuals and there age rather than a specific age group related issue.

Totally agree there and older people I find in the main are rather rude but I don't blame them what with all the other numpties.

Andrew

_________________
It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

like not giving some king of acknowledgement when you let them in the line of traffic, or give way to alow them down narrow road.

Nothing wrong with a bit of courtesy..

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Indeed. If another road user deliberately acts in a way to make my life that little bit easier, whether I'm in my car or on foot, I will always, ALWAYS, acknowledge them. Because I know that if I don't, chances are the next time that person has to choose whether or not to make another road users life that little bit easier, they might decide not to bother...

On a related point, does anyone else get just a touch annoyed by people who force you to make way for them, and then give you a wave/flash of lights to make it look like you were actually letting them through/out/across, as if that somehow justifies their selfishness and impatience?

Yes it bugs me. I if I see someone who need to to merge (end of a right hand lane) I usualy leave a gap. I have seen occasions where cars drive bumper to bumper to not let someone in. I am not that up-tight.

The thing that I hate is on motorway slip roads. Cars on the slip "expect" onthers to move over. Some don't bother to look just pull out expecting the traffic to make room. I was boxed in the left lane by a row of trucks, a came over from the slip road without looking and got narked when I did not brake to let him in. In my book you give way to traffic on the right.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Quite, deliberately blocking off another road user like that is bad form, especially since it can then lead to the blockee becoming increasingly frustrated in their attempts to make any sort of progress, frustration which may ultimately lead to an insane move on their part that they'd never normally have contemplated.

However, just barging in as if you've got some divine right to make progress at the expense of every other road user is annoying enough in its own right, but I was specifically referring to those people who, having perfomed such an act, then give you a wave/flash/etc to make it seem as if you were actually giving way to them in the first place... Do they really think that saying thanks makes them look any less of a prat?




And from the left, and from straight on, if the road layout requires it... It isn't a question of giving way to traffic coming from a certain direction, it's a question of giving way to the traffic that has right of way over you.