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| "Oh it's a lady driver"
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| Saturday, April 26, 2008
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 When my hubby said that when we heard someone flare the horn on the road, I told myself this post was long overdue. Seriously, I cannot stand men who just presume that whenever someone sounds the car horn or an accident happening which involves a female driver, the first reason that pops out of any man's mouth is "(Sigh) another lady driver." I mean, what's wrong with lady drivers that makes men detest us so? Personally, I think it is the men who have the problem.
I don't mean to start a gender war here but really, are we, the lady drivers, always the one at fault? Couldn't it be the men who are sometimes too impatient on the road equally probable at fault should an accident happen? Singapore is by far to me the country filled with the most impatient drivers in the world. Seriously, most drivers attempt to overtake at any time possible, drive through an amber light at like 90km/h when they know it is going to turn red and are notorious for snatching parking lots. The car horn goes off like crazy on the road. It's like natural instinct - Singaporeans love sounding their car horns for the littlest reasons. This is the one time I can truly say that I can be ashamed of Singaporeans - when it comes to driving. Don't even think of road courtesy and giving way to rookie drivers. It's a car eat car world here.
So naturally, being a lady driver in Singapore can be tough. The more experienced men drivers don't give a fuck about us and will sound the horn at any time possible when we make mistakes. I decided to ask some of my male friends what's up with their resentment to lady drivers and here are some quotes from my friends that I spoke to with regards to this topic.- "Lady drivers drive like snails" - Okay according to Male Friend A, lady drivers always keep to or below the speed limit which irks Singaporean male drivers, who are practically always rushing for God knows what. "Why can't lady drivers drive normally?" Male Friend A questions which according to him normal speed is always at least 10km/h above the speed limit.
- "Lady drivers can't make decisions quickly" - Male Friend B says that lady drivers are indecisive when it comes to overtaking or trying to switch lanes. Male friend B claims that when he sees a lady driver trying to cut into his lane, he will usually speed up and not let her cut in. He cites an example, "It was peak hour... After she signals, she takes too long to decide if they should cut in or not. By the time they make up their mind, the whole freaking lane is horning at her and she still takes her own bloody sweet time to cut lane!"
- "Lady drivers don't know their right from their left (basically directionless)" - Male Friend A then remembers about incidents where a lady driver couldn't decide if she wanted left or right and was swerving on the highway. Male Friend C then interrupts and says, "Women are forever directionless on the roads!" (they just seem to forget that I AM A LADY DRIVER TOO). Male Friend C says that lady drivers are hopeless when it comes to new roads or unfamiliar places and will always be a nuisance on the roads when they don't know where they are. "They'll start shrieking in the care when they are lost or people give them wrong directions. They are not as adventurous as men on the roads," Male Friend A remarked.
- "Lady drivers can't park their cars quickly or properly" - the men say lady drivers are "hopeless" when it comes to parallel parking and/or takes too much time getting their car straight. They claim by the time the lady is done parking, there would be a whole stream of cars waiting for her to clear the path for others to park.
So listening to the gripes of these men, I wonder how in the world can I defend us lady drivers? Are we being too safe on the roads that we in turn become hazards for the men? Why are male drivers so quick to blame us for being "clumsy" on the roads? Even when we are already driving on the roads for years, we still get the "oh it's another lady driver" comment thrown at us by men.
Maybe it's time for lady drivers to start ganging up on male drivers who drive like maniacs on the road. Some justice for female drivers PLEASE! *cries to heaven*
*Shanea Out (lady drivers) @ 9:09pm* |
posted by Jasmine Shanea @ 8:41 PM
 
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| 14 Comments: |
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It's because there are only two genders and men never blame themselves for anything. Just like they never ask for directions cause they are never lost.
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I'm not a driver! I think I wouldn't like driving much. And being the minority on the road, men love to bully women drivers. I've seen countless bad male drivers on the road too! Slow, reckless, mobile phone users, tailgating, drunk.. don't tell me they are all ladies!!!
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@laura: i agree. they think they know everything. *shakes head
@sher. you go girl! I just don't understand why men just love to pick on us ladies. Sheesh.
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I read somewhere that males and females treat their cars differently... males treat it as an extension of their body while females treat it as a device that they have to work with.
I think the way our brains are wired generally affects the way we handle our cars as well.
Males are better at frontal vision; they can see better ahead. Females are better with peripheral vision; they are more aware of their immediately surroundings.
Thus a male driver will be safer if there's a female passenger to help him look out for surrounding dangers.
But it somehow doesn't work out very well if we switch it the other way round. The female will be too busy looking sideways while the male will be frustrated not being able to move the car forward...
Ultimately, the car moves front and back but not sideways.
My 2 cents worth. :)
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I think it's not a matter of male or female. My driving objectives nowadays are to get to the destination in one piece and to be as environmental friendly driving as possible. I tend to agree with CK to certain extent that a lot of time, it is the differing view and perspective at thing; in this case driving. If we can understand that different people think differently, maybe we will have more patience.
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In the UK every driving experiment evaluating the capabilities of male versus female drivers, women have come out as the most careful.
However, I think that women can be over-cautious behind the wheel, but men are too aggressive.
Ultimately, I'm inclined to think that men's attitudes to women drivers have little or nothing to do with the actual driving, but damn near everything to do with us being women! ;-)
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@CK: very detailed insight to the topic. Maybe it's like what Reward Rebel mentioned that women are indeed more cautious drivers than men who don't really care about the people around them and want to drive forwards.
@bk: definitely, I guess male and female drivers just have to give and take and make the roads a friendlier place to be at. :)
@layne, Reward Rebel: Thanks for your comments! As mentioned, I agree that sometimes these issues are there just cause men and women are just being men and women. Something about the difference in anatomy just sets of the love and hate relationship between the two genders. :)
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i do agree that lady drivers are pretty directionless though, and tons of my friends can testify to that.
other than that, i think lady drivers are just too careful when it comes to driving. and i realized it's just lady drivers in singapore. it's almost like they are afraid of becoming one of those "lady drivers" that men gripe about and hence, tend to be slower/take longer time to make a decision to avoid getting into accidents. i've seen lady drivers in other countries being as "garang" or fierce like men drivers and don't get tagged as being bad drivers. i guess the point of this is that lady drivers (in singapore), you know what you're doing, just grow some guts and drive like a man. odds are, with the stereotype that we fit into in singapore, men would be freaked out by us trying to cut lanes with an inch distance and back off, thus letting us in :P
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Drive fast, drive decent, don't road hog, check your blind spot when you change lane, and I don't care if you are a lady or a guy. If you road hog and drive dangerous/slowly, you'll get the finger and the high beam flash from me regardless whether you are female or another uncle.
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This is pretty funny...I just wrote a 'crazy women driver' piece last Friday! LOL
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@Cher: Thanks for the share babe about the whole self fulfilling prophesy concept. Indeed some women I know fall into this trap - calling other lady drivers names and then when they drive, they commit the same mistakes.
@natsukawa ryu Hahaha... be nicer on the road lah! Didn't the government toot so much about road safety already? lol.
@bobo: Haha.. your post is gonna be tagged as one of my evidence pieces! lol.
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Ahh. I hear those kinds of comments a lot, too. But as much as I want to be upset and offended... I can't help but nod my head in agreement.
My issue is women is HUGE SUV's. They never seem to know how to drive them or control them. Suddenly MY lane becomes THEIR lane, too.
I've also seen women putting on make-up while they are merging on the highway... the list goes on and on.
I don't think all women drive like this. I mean I don't... I've been told I drive like a man. I'm very aggressive, I speed... I want to GET where I'm going! But the women that drive like idiots give us [the GOOD lady drivers] a bad name and feed into the "it must be a lady driver" stereotype.
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I don't think that one gender is worse than the other... but they commit different offences than their opposite gender - that's why we get stigma. Add what Laura said on to that and you've got this sort of prejudiced attitude from the guys.
In my 7 years of driving I've learnt that you really can't stereotype the bad drivers. We're all human so someone's bound to make a mistake or two - just relax and look out for yourself! But I know it's so hard not to be judgemental when you're driving around... I have to stop myself so many times.
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Ah, that is not cool. I thought stereotypes was a thing of the past. I can park my car, I can work with power tools, I can manage my familly and my budget all that at the same time! I just can't spell ;)
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It's because there are only two genders and men never blame themselves for anything. Just like they never ask for directions cause they are never lost.