Typical woman driving a car too big for her

I go to church. On Sunday mornings the carpark, which has no white lines, is sensibly filled and cars parked 'normally'. There's nothing out of the ordinary to notice. Sunday is the day when families arrive together and it's typically the men who drive, or the men arrive first, by themselves to set up chairs, drumkits, audio equipment etc early.

On Thursday evenings, when it's the women's meeting, there's about a 3rd less cars fitted on the carpark because each car leaves a MASSIVE gap between it and the next car. Cars are wonky. Car aren't fully pulled in to the wall. Theres usually someone blocking the exit gate. And someone else parked so that chances of anyone doing a 3-point turn is impossible. There'll also be a car parked in the entrance, supposedly close to the wall but so far out it looks like it's just been dumped.

Tuesdays when Knitting club is on are exactly the same. Cars parked like a tornado passed through and people just stopped and ran for their lives. When it's the Mens meeting it's neat and organised and they managed to park to actual capacity, the same as it is on Sundays.

You could show me a photo of the carpark and I could tell you what meeting is on.

Daylight? Shit parking? Its must be Tuesday afternoon and knitting club.
Twilight? Neatly parked? Must be Mens club which makes it a Tue evening.

It makes me embarrassed to be female.

I am 5'3, female and the proud owner and driver of a ford transit custom (family of 6 so need the space! Especially when the oldest little bring friends along!) I have double pram, usually shopping think Mary Poppins handbag but a van🤣

I love it when i get the 'vehicle is too big for a woman' comments . . . A gentleman kindly pointed this out to me as i reversed into a parent a child space last week actually! He was promptly told to keep his comments to himself, as i actually drive lorries for a living so he should be grateful i hadnt arrived in my T-cab!

@DrRylandGrace I'd add to your list of the useless DVLA and other failings, the courts not banning everyone who should be. There is no other crime where hardship from a sanction or punishment means a lesser one.

I know they won’t. The DVLA is a joke. Nonetheless, the reason there are so many poor drivers on the roads are that a) the standard to pass a driving test is so low; and b) there are not periodic re-tests with licences removed from those who fail.

I have just read the most recent comments. People saying they can’t properly see around their car and so don’t have a sufficient awareness of its size to park it conpetently, yet they still drive it?! If they cannot see sufficiently to park it how will they see if a child walks out in front of them when driving?! And blaming their height when many women (who are not all some kind of alien species of giant woman!) competently drive lorries. Ridiculous.

Ultimately anyone who knows they cannot safely drive on a motorway (the easiest and simplest and safest driving) or is scared to change lanes or drive over 40mph or pull out at a busy roundabout or who is scared by the idea of driving in a busy city/ on rural roads or through mountains/ can’t reverse on a single track road or park competently/ can’t cope with busy traffic at higher volumes than existed in 1970 or any combination of the above should know they are not sufficiently confident and safe to be on the roads or react to unexpected circumstances as they arise and therefore should refrain from driving unsupervised even if the DLA has, bafflingly, issued them a licence. Or their friends/ family members should intervene and stop them causing inconvenience (at best) or substantial risks to others.

Have you considered a booster seat? I think they are still recommended for children who are the same height as you.

Go karts are the best. Dad tried to teach us to drive when I was 9 but we were a bit too short. So he built us a go kart and would grade tracks in the house paddock for us or we would put the grass tyres on (ie bald) and fang around on the wet lawn and clover doing slides and circle work. Cannot say how many times when driving cars that I've had to rely on the go kart skills. For example I was driving a road I always drove, doing 80 km/hr (signed limit). On a big, sweeping corner felt one back tyre slip, then felt the other slide and was a wee bit sideways. Had to straighten up before the other side of the corner due to the guard rail starting. Cue go kart sliding skills kicking in. Many people would have fallen off the road.

I think everyone should do go karts as it's great practise for steering, accelerating and stopping.

Where I live someone uses their porsche suv to tow their horse. Never knew porsches could tow a decent weight before I saw that.

I think a lot of people have poor driving skills. I grew up swapping between many farm vehicles so am used to driving lots of different sizes. I would go from my excel to driving a friends landcruiser and horse float with no issues in size perception. But that's lots of practise.

Around where I grew up the driving issues were from male drivers wearing hats. And don't get me started on the oversized, penis compensators in cities. SUVs are fine but American supersized things are just ridiculous. There is one where I park who tries to squish his penile compensator into a reserved spot marked for small cars. Hangs out into the car park traffic like a womble.

I think both men and women are equally shit at driving.

But I think men are more bold and convinced of their own driving prowess, especially when driving a big car, while women are less so.

SUVs tend to be more difficult for women to park because we are shorter on average and, even with adjustable seats, don’t have the same visibility that men have. This means we have poorer line of sight to the markings delineating the parking space and of the space immediately to the front and rear of the vehicle. A large lower car tends not to have the same blind spots for female drivers than suvs, but visibility still tends to be more restricted than for men.

Doing all of those road types would be absolutely ideal but in reality isn’t workable. Some test centres have no motorways near them for example.

The test is stringent, and they are currently hard to come by for 17yo’s, so they certainly won’t open them out to retest full licence holders even if some are awful.

As a driving instructor I salute you for this.

Sadly many of the teenage girls I get can’t steer. Socialisation means that they’ve never got on a go kart or driven bumper cars. Girls are not pushed in that direction.

Personally I’d love to start a campaign to promote pre driving skills for girls and build confidence in women driving, but I’ve got too many learners to make it happen!

Most of the people I see struggling with larger cars are women. It’s the reason I drive a Hyundai i10.

I have seen some terrible women drivers, far more then men. So many women can't park, myself included. Going into hiding now 🙈

As I'm sure others have pointed out. When insurers were allowed to discriminate by sex, car insurance was always lower for women.

I know what she said. She hates them being bought just for height and safety. Fine. But then she goes on to make out that most are bought for that and I don't believe that it is true. I believe most are bought for utility, she clearly doesn't.

I would love to drive a car that was the right size for me (5 foot). So I could turn round and see out of the back window like my husband does. So that I could comfortably have a seatbelt on that didn't rest on my neck. A seat, steering wheels, knobs that egonomically fit someone of my size.

But that car doesn't exist. Because the default size is average man size.
But we have an SUV with 360 cameras and a high driving position. And that's pretty good.

I think there is some truth in what your colleague said. You rarely see a man struggling to park ( I am not talking about the obnoxious type who park over 2 bays) not all of course, but usually when you see someone driving in and out of a bay, or struggling to parallel park, it is a woman.

I have to agree with this. Normally in a Range Rover.

Not saying I’d manage it either, which is why I drive a smaller car!

I’m a confident driver so it does annoy me if I see women in big swanky cars and they are clearly nervous and incompetent. That is several tonnage of metal they’re in charge of - it’s a road safety issue.

If you don’t feel that you can competently manoeuvre a vehicle of that size - don’t drive on a public road.

I have equal bugbears about male behaviours on roads but that’s a different thread.

It may be a shock to some of the country bumpkins but people who don’t live in the back of beyond can still have good reasons for purchasing a large car. E.g. needing to cart lots of kid/ baby/ camping stuff on trips or going on holiday by car across Europe to self-catering accommodation where they need to take quite a lot of things for 2 or 3 weeks, people who have hobbies like cycling or surfing so need to fit large sports equipment into their cars even if they live in a town or city, people who have multiple children and need to fit multiple isofix car seats for safety, people who make long journeys to see family so need a car with sufficient space to travel comfortably with everything they need to take with them, people with small businesses and stock to move around, people with pets to transport as well as children, anybody who might need to do tip runs or go to IKEA etc with children in the car so requires decent boot space, and myriad other reasons, I’m sure.

I do agree though that there are many, many people on the roads who should not have driving licences. I have driven in maybe 15 different countries and it’s the same everywhere: the worst culprits are generally women who seem too terrified of driving to be on the road (so many threads on this website with them admitting this!), certain men in their 20s and 30s who drive recklessly and aggressively yet seem to be convinced that they are excellent drivers, and elderly people who also appear to be convinced that they’re excellent drivers because they drive 20mph under the speed limit in broad daylight and sunshine and are so slow and hesistant that they are often more of a danger than the reckless men who are trying to use their car to compensate for apparent lack of the esteem they feel they deserve when outside the vehicle.

The problem isn’t the type of car, it is that driving tests should be much stricter, repeated at regular intervals, and include motorway driving. Unless you can confidently handle city driving, night driving, country lanes, mountain roads with sheer drops, motorways etc, you should not have a driving licence. The whole point of it is that it’s meant to be varification that you have proved you are safe to handle any road situation, so I do agree that it’s ludicrous that there are people on the roads who cannot even park competently. That said, it’s a lot less dangerous that a lot of the other transgressions.

I do know three women who don't drive on motorways.. I don't know any men that don't. We are conditioned to have biases... If I get cut up by someone who then slams their brakes on, I always assume it is a man. That said I drive a huge car and am way more competent at parking it than my male OH. I am a better driver all round to be honest but I have done it a lot more and are more confident. He would end up God knows where without a satnav and doesn't like doing unfamiliar routes... He does them but he isn't comfy at all. But I have been driving for forty years and he didn't learn until his mid thirties because he lived in London and it just wasn't a thing.

I think you read a different post to me because that’s not what she said!

(also a country dweller).

DH used to work in haulage and warehousing. He said the best drivers of 44 ton lorries were usually the women.

I note the driver in this latest incident is a woman.

The comment is sexist.
Some SUVs are just about too big for anyone.
Another one has been launched into a nursery very sadly too, and a 2 year old badly injured.
Sadiq Khan needs to look to Paris.