In the past, I’ve written on matters of high import for the future of our republic, and on literal questions of life and death. But clearly, nothing excites the Freakonomics readership more than the issue of why men tend to do the driving when a couple is in the car. The Times‘s server nearly melted down as more than 400 of you posted responses to my article on the subject.
I was quite interested to hear your ideas, specifically on how and why you apportion the driving chores in your own relationships. So I went through your posts quite thoroughly.
An exasperated “Tamarisk” reported the topic makes him (her?) “soooooo glad to be gay.” But for those who are curious and have jobs, families, hobbies, or lives which prevent them from reading all 400, I thought I’d pass on the distilled wit and wisdom of those who commented.
Any peer reviewer with a pulse would hound me out of the profession for claiming the sample of responders is representative of the population at large. For example, over three quarters of those who posted were women, and I strongly doubt that this lopsided split reflects the Freakonomics readership, let alone the population as a whole. But the skewed response rate in and of itself says something interesting: it seems that women are more thoughtful and passionate about the driving imbalance, while men take it for granted as a fact of life.
In a nutshell, what did I find? 183 people reported the man is the primary driver in their relationship, versus 51 who said the woman handles more of the driving chores. (37 said the driving is split more or less evenly.) No big surprise – the male domination of the wheel reported here confirms the story we’ve seen in the other data. (Though on the other hand, some of you might consider the level of female driving reported here surprisingly high.)
Some of the reasons you gave for men driving more were a bit offbeat:
- One of you (a woman) said her partner drives more due to the awkwardness of working the pedals with high heels.
- Several of you said that you believe the pattern is formed during courtship, when the man is expected to pick the woman up for dates, not vice versa. Sheer inertia was said to take over from there.
- A number of people reported that alcohol consumption plays a major role. Five women wrote they drive more on leisure trips because their partner drinks more than they do. On the other hand, a couple of people reported that the man drives more because he is better able to hold his liquor.
- One woman stated she takes the wheel more frequently because she is far more adept than her husband at evading traffic tickets.
- There seems to be a bit of a perception gap when it comes to navigation. Fourteen women claimed they are superior at finding the way, and no women reported their husband is. Five men averred that they are the better navigator, and only one man confessed that his wife is. I won’t wade into this thorny dispute, except to note that it only partially explains the division of driving duties. Some of the “superior navigators” prefer to be behind the wheel and in control, while others reported they deliberately ride shotgun to handle the maps, etc.
- Fourteen people stated that the woman sits in the passenger seat to entertain and care for the children in back. In only one case was the man reported as usually drawing that duty. While this may in part explain the male/female driving phenomenon, you’ll have to go find another blogger to get a explanation of why the childcare imbalance occurs in the first place.
More weighty and fundamental issues were also raised. Some were what I expected, but others were quite surprising. Because of the sheer number of observations – and the fact that my eyes glaze over at the sight of a super-long blog post just like yours do – I’m going to pick this thread up again soon.
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My husband drives because he gets car sick easily if he doesn’t. I don’t usually mind on long trips because I have no problem sleeping in the car. It does get a bit annoying because he drives much more slowly than I do, but his nausea trumps my impatience.
I let my boyfriend drive because I am quite obese
If it is highway driving during the day, I like to drive because I go faster and get impatient with him behind the wheel. I have horrible night vision however, so I make my husband drive at night. Early in our relationship, it was more even, with me driving a little more often perhaps. For some reason, he drives more than me after a couple of years, even during the day. Maybe it is inertia, following a pattern set by our parents.
A simpler reason is one that everyone knows but no one dares to admit in our politically-correct era: women tend to be lousy drivers.
I didn’t say that *only* women are lousy drivers. Lots of men are lousy drivers. Based on my experience, however, I conclude that a higher proportion of women are bad drivers than men. Moreover, women are bad drivers in ways that inflate the number of accidents in which male drivers are technically “at fault.”
The male drivers involved in accidents caused by women drivers are indeed at fault, but only in the sense that any driver must be vigilant enough to look for and react to the unpredictable and unexpected. Women drive unpredictably.
If a woman drives up to an intersection that has a green light, and she then abruptly slams on her brakes, a male driver behind her is at fault for crashing into her. However, the insurance statistics do not reflect the significant degree to such unpredictable behavior contributes to traffic accidents.
I have never been involved in such an accident, so I’m not merely attempting to excuse something that I did. One reason I’ve never been in such an accident is that when I see a woman driver, I always give her plenty of room.
“The Times’s server nearly melted down as more than 400 of you posted responses to my article on the subject. ”
Really? Enjoy self-aggrandizing hyperbole much? Times articles regularly get well over 1000 responses. 400 is a lot for this blog, but let’s not go overboard in stating our own importance.
To Miles’ point, you are way off base. If a woman slams on her brakes at a green light, even if it was unpredictable and unsafe, people behind her are still required to leave enough stopping distance between themselves and her to allow time to stop. Suppose she slammed the brakes because someone was jaywalking… unexpected, yes, but perfectly appropriate. Driving behind her, you would have no idea why she slams on the brakes and, honestly, it doesn’t matter. You still need to leave room to stop and, if you don’t, you are at fault for driving too aggressively.
There certainly are situations where people can “cause” an accident and not be at fault. But I find it hard to believe any real evidence exists to demonstrate this is primarily attributable to females. It also implies that there is only one “cause” for an accident, when most are the result of several acts that independently would not cause an accident but collectively do.
@Dave – So do you ride shotgun if you don’t want to listen to your partner?
I do most driving on weekends for two reasons:
– Weekend driving involves the kids, which means that we need to take the minivan (3 carseats in the back of a sedan = madness), which is by common agreement my car
– My husband commutes by car all week, while I bike to the train station – I like driving and miss it, so I do it while I can.
On vacation, I do most driving too, while he navigates: his driving makes me a little crazy (mostly grandpa speeds, with occasional bursts of being really mad at people) and my navigating drives him crazy (I’m a bit laissez-faire, unless I’m convinced we’re going the wrong way.)
I’d always simply assumed that the ladies allow us to drive so we can feel like we’re in charge of something vaguely important.