I am sure you must have heard these phrases AT LEAST once, “Ye Bandi hai, kaha chalane aata hoga!”, “Woman driver matlab disaster!” & “He drives like a stupid old woman”. These words have hurt women everywhere!

This gap between a male and a female driver has always seen the former trump over the latter. Most of the times, women are the victims of the age-old stereotype, terming them as ‘Bad Drivers’. This has been seen in famous Pop Culture like sitcoms, movies and cartoon shows.

How did this Misconception start?

It’s unclear how this misconception started, but one of the earliest references dates back to the hit 1962-63 American Cartoon show ‘The Jetsons’. In one of its episodes, the Leading Lady was seen to be driving horribly bad. That infamous episode added unnecessary spark to a rather outdated notion about women drivers.

But, in reality, women drivers beat their male counterparts by a considerable margin. Not convinced?

Studies show that women are less likely to be involved in car accidents. Men are involved more in fatal incidents.

Men also tend to be more aggressive than women while driving and get easily distracted because they look less on the road ahead. The former have also been known to overtake more.

Women are less likely to overtake and think twice. “Should I wait”, “Shall I go ahead”, these are the thoughts that women have while risking to speed up!

Women rule the road because the obey the traffic rules. They are better at learning the rules quickly. A study in UK has revealed that men constituted around 79% of the drivers taken for trial to court because of their over speeding and rash driving.

In UAE, a report concluded that 27% of men were responsible for collisions as compared to their female counterparts, responsible for only 15% of the accidents!

Also, women aren’t as hot-headed as men and deal calmly with the issues on the road. not considered as a sign of a good driver, but women tend to buckle their seat belt more. They also take safety on road more seriously and buckle their seat belt regularly as compared to men.

All of these statistics claim that WOMEN ARE SAFER DRIVERS than men!

Time to End this Stereotype!

This debate between the superiority among the two sexes will continue, but the change, where we stop this prejudice, starts with us. This issue has also been discussed on innumerable occasions, yet we aren’t able to accept the fact that driving is driving, at the end of the day.

Last year, in June 2018, women in Saudi Arabia were finally given the right to drive on the roads. It was a long struggle, but the government lifted this orthodox ban on women driving . Before that, Saudi Arabia was the only country that didn’t allow its ladies to drive, which might feel harsh to many liberalists.

It is 2019, a very rebellious year, which has seen some major old-time traditions and stereotypes broken. It’s time that we put a STOP to such orthodox thoughts and stop targeting women unfairly, portraying them as terrible drivers.

Anyways, it is the ladies who have to work harder to prove their worth. Period.