Fast women show their claws

Women drivers used to cast a jaundiced eye on male road aggression, but a new report reveals many are showing the same mean tendencies, reports Zoe Brennan of The Sunday Times

They are fast, female and ferocious. Women are driving faster and being convicted more often for speeding and dangerous driving than ever before. The largest study of its kind has concluded that women drivers are as likely to indulge in horn-honking, tailgating, risky overtaking, speeding and making rude gestures as their male counterparts.

It’s not just because cars are faster or more women are on the road, it is because they are as aggressive as men. The study by a team of psychologists in Florida looked at the driving behaviour of 400 twentysomethings and late teens in America and Japan and measured their levels of aggression. On almost every measure young women were equal to or surpassed men.

The study, due to be published shortly in the American scientific press, is loaded with psychometric jargon but its implications are inescapable. Women, it found, exhibited high levels of hostility, sensation seeking, susceptibility to boredom, and competitiveness. The behaviour of the American women appeared to be fuelled by hostility (“I’m in a hurry. Move it or lose it,” was the typical attitude).

John Houston, a psychology professor and one of the authors of the report, says the outcome of the research reflects women’s changing social roles. “We need to recognise that male drivers aren’t necessarily the biggest threat on the road,” he says. “Women don’t seem to be following the rules any more. They may have been more cautious drivers in the past, but that no longer holds. We were very surprised by our findings.”

What is true for women drivers in America and Japan does not necessarily hold in Britain. Insurance companies, which count the cost of accidents, say women in this country are much safer behind the wheel than men. However, they warn the gender gap is closing.

The latest available Home Office statistics show British women account for an increasing share of nearly all types of traffic conviction — especially speeding. In six years from 1996 to 2002 the proportion of women convicted for speeding rose by more than half to 17% of the national total of 124,600. An increased proportion of women were also convicted for drink-driving, driving without insurance, neglect of traffic signs and pedestrian rights, as well as parking offences.

Helen Parker, a 26-year-old marketing executive from south London, admits she drives her Audi cabriolet too fast and swears like a van driver. She has penalty points for doing 85mph on a motorway. “I drive a male colleague in to work every day, and he is always appalled by my behaviour,” she says. “I like to drive fast and I hate it when people get in my way. I wouldn’t like my mother to hear the language I use.”

Houston says women like Parker are the new “fast females”. “We know that women don’t like getting into conflict situations that can escalate, but they obviously feel safe and empowered in their cars and like the thrill and power of zooming along at a high speed.

“This is linked with women’s changing social roles and greater independence. Driving is an extension of the working day.”

Other experts say the reasons may not just be aggressiveness. Andrew Howard, the head of road safety at the AA Motoring Trust, says speed cameras are catching fast women who previously got away with it.

“A greater percentage of the people being caught by cameras are women, because cameras are indiscriminate,” he says. “Women can’t flutter their eyelashes at a speed camera. It used to be that policemen would pull over only the worst offenders, who all tended to be men. Now, if you go at 36mph the camera will get you.”

Nicola Archer, 41, a consultant surgeon at a London hospital, believes she is driven not by thrill-seeking so much as stress.

She was cautioned for speeding by an officer who declared: “Madam, we’ve pulled you over not because you were going over the speed limit, which you were, but because you overtook us.”

Archer — who drives a convertible Mercedes E320 — thinks that the new-found assertiveness of women behind the wheel is linked to the increased pressure in their lives. “Women find themselves caught in a constant whirl of multitasking,” she says. “They’re rushing to drop the baby at the nursery before getting to work and delivering a presentation, talking on the mobile and slapping on their make-up at traffic lights. Of course we drive fast — I do because I’m perpetually late and stressed.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1429747,00.html

And bugger the rules of the road.