Roundabout
Pity the Poor Roadsows
By KATHARINE WHITEHORN
But even those women who almost never drive taxis have a hard enough time just being women drivers. There have been a number of vitriolic correspondences in the newspapers re- cently about whether women were worse drivers than men, provoked by an insurance company that decided to drop its rates for women; and all the old arguments have been trotted out. Women are, on the one hand, feather-paced, unreliable and likely to dodder along without signals; men, on the other hand, are prejudiced road-hogs who produce far worse accidents by an insane craving for speed than a woman ever did by thinking about what to have for dinner. The AA reasonably points out that women drive less often than men, so it would not be surprising if they did have fewer accidents. All parties, as far as I can see, missed the point: which was that women undoubtedly drive badly a great deal of the time, but whose fault is that?
Consider the typical situations in which a woman driver fails to win friends and influences people only to blasphemy and homicide. There she is, her engine stalled at a traffic light, fruit- lessly trying to start it up; horns blaring, the lights changing from green to red to amber. Or trying to turn in the road and losing the reverse gear at the crucial point, holding up a whole line of angry traffic. Or making a right-hand signal, changing her mind and wavering back to her own side of the road. She is very much more likely to be making an ass of -herself in this sort of way than by overtaking at the wrong point, jumping the yellow light, running up a whole line of traffic to get in at the head of the queue ('I've seen a man driving on the pavement to do that,' says the director of the Institute of Advanced Motorists). Some forms of error, like embroidery or tears, come naturally to women.
But these are all the kind of mistakes that spring either from unfamiliarity with the car or from a basic lack of confidence and practice. No one loses a gear in their own car; no one dithers on !a well-known route. Really good drivers of either sex have built up their skill with constant driving, and usually in their own cars. And how many women get a chance?
I have two aunts who are a perfect example of all this. They were both brought up in a family whose traffic notions were of the haziest; in the days before Scotland became a tourist centre they used to play badminton on the road and leave the net up across the road all night; they took the baby around in a wickerwork bicycle trailer which frequently broke free and bowled down the steep mountain roads ahead of them; their numerous bicycles had, like the Norns, but one brake and one bell and one rear light between them. Not a promising start.
Now, thirty years later, one of these women is a superb driver; she knows her car and its limitations, drives it well and safely and, on the right sort of roads, fast. She is single, and it is her own car. The other has a husband who sits chain-smoking with white knuckles whenever she is at the wheel; who says, 'I'd better take over, dear,' at the slightest sign of difficulty even if he's in a plaster cast; who has assumed from the word go that for him to drive is normal, for her to drive a dangerous exception. She is a much worse driver than her sister, of course: erratic and nervous when her husband is with her, a gleeful scorcher when let off the leash.
I can get hot under the collar any time at the thought of people who actually seem to value their cars more than their wives—a pheno most striking when they make the mistakad teaching them to drive (even Eyles of the vanced Motorists himself couldn't teach wife: she got out on the by-pass and took a home when he tried). It has always seemed me highly hypocritical to allow the wife to d the car at all, let alone.to drive the children school, if she really is too dangerous to the Head of the Family. But in fact there I• real division of interest. The man who lets wife drive the Jaguar once a fortnight as a cession puts a trembling bag of nerves a wheel; a man who lets her drive it as much be does in fact, ensures that she will do far damage when she does get at it. Perhaps is some natural affinity that ensures that will know what caused the ,nasty noise I gear-box as a woman will know what e the nasty noise in the baby, but a man call made a better nappy-changer by con changing nappies; and the same goes women and the spare tyre.
The other day a girl at a party confided 10 that she was secretly taking driving le° because her husband was sure it would be safe for her to learn. Thinking that Per there was a Bentley to be protected, I asked what car he drove. 'Oh, we don't have a car she said. 'He's only taking lessons himself. Why there isn't a Motoring Division of Marriage Guidance Council I cannot think• tne to S. ace ses! sell bet tak her law top
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