Typical woman driving a car too big for her

[Lewqa]

That’s what my work colleague (a woman) said whilst sat next to me this morning when I gave her a lift in. We were waiting to pass a car (SUV) in the work car park where the driver was taking a while to park, lining it up etc.

I have heard this sentiment before from others, it’s not the first time.

AIBU for saying that men are just as bad as women when it comes to their driving/parking ability with these bigger cars?

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.

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.

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

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.

@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 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!

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 thought opinions like that had died a death in 1978. Apparently old-fashioned sexism and internalised misogyny live on.

Yes there is.

Remember the boys recently convicted of rape?

Massive cars have become "a thing" around here, I have an XC90 which I thought was big, but it is dwarfed by some of the monstrosities on the roads today. You can tell the people driving them male or female have no idea what they are doing wrt road position, maneuvering or where the corners are.

One of the largest and most reliable sex differences is visuospatial abilities and skills, hence why men tend to be better at parking cars, reading maps and so on.

That is only half a story.

‘Men, on average, score higher on specific visuospatial tests like mental rotation and cardinal navigation, this does not translate to them being better drivers overall. Driving encompasses much more than spatial orientation; safety, awareness, and decision-making are just as critical.’

‘The evidence shows that the worst drivers are novice drivers and old drivers who lose their abilities to judge speed, distance and space.’

‘Women tend to be less confident in their driving abilities whereas men are over confident and have poor impulse control.’

’it is an absolute fact that men cause many more accidents than women, which are more likely to be fatal.’

There’s been many studies on this. Google exists if you want to read them
in full to discover the nuances.

Me neither.
I shop at Waitrose and my (small) car is 20 years old this year. Maybe I have more cash to spend on nice food because I bought a small, old car that's cheap to run?

’it is an absolute fact that men cause many more accidents than women, which are more likely to be fatal.’

Men also drive a lot more than women. When you control for mile driven, Women are involved in more accidents than men.

There are too many massive cars now, it's one of my number one driving peeves. Doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman, if your car is so big that you struggle to drive down narrow roads or park it it's too big.

I'm excellent at reversing though, better than my husband! Years of living somewhere with no parking was good experience.

‘Yes, male drivers in the UK cover more miles than women—typically driving around 60% more per year. However, increased mileage alone does not explain the higher accident rate. Statistical analysis shows that men are still significantly more likely to be involved in serious or fatal collisions per mile driven due to behavioural factors. 1, 2, 3]’

Citations
University of Westminster, DK law and Fleet alliance.

Now do all collisions and not just serious or fatal 🙄

@DrRylandGrace learning to drive in Germany involves having to do mandatory driving hours on the Autobahn, country roads, night driving and in different road conditions. There are also requirements to present an official eye test, present a certified first aid certificate and attend a number of in person theory classes. Lessons have to be with a proper instructor, not a parent sharing their bad habits! The practical test is stringent.

However, this doesn’t translate into safer roads as the U.K. consistently outperforms Germany on deaths per 100,000 population according to the International Transport Forum report of 2025 (and another source I now can’t find). Lots of factors could account for that, for example, they have better driver discipline on motorways, we have lower speed limits, we have a higher limit for alcohol but drink driving has more rigorous policing in the U.K. and stigma is more severe here. In both countries men are better at killing themselves in cars which is not simply a case of doing more miles. No country is keeping stats for who can’t park a Range Rover in Waitrose.

This study is interesting. Women don’t come out of it that well in terms of causing accidents and clearly don’t come out of serious accidents that well due to safety features built for men and because they are much more likely to be driving small cars.

s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/pstorage-loughborough-53465/16948286/PUB191.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJGXP3DOPNGAZIK6Q/20260619/eu-west-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260619T054902Z&X-Amz-Expires=10&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=c68de7c9d7c53136fb388681aab2df8bdf7129d0b6549c28980d4c0b85ce7354

Sorry, bad link in my post. It was a Loughborough University study titled Male and Female car drivers - differences in collision and injury risk.

Yup

You might not like it but there is some truth to it. I’ve directly observed numerous women struggling with their “big car” vs noticeably fewer men.

Imo men tend to be more reckless drivers and women tend to be nervous parkers. I'd rather be behind a cautious driver than a reckless one.

I once watched in awe as a very well dressed young lady perfectly parallel parked a knackered old range rover into a spot that I could have sworn you'd have had to drop it into - she strode straight into the estate agent by it, so I presume she was just expert at parallel parking from long practice.

I've driven cars of any size, frequently with the steering wheel on the wrong side, and never had any issues (although for some reason I'm better at parallel parking on my off side than on the near side)

I've also see a woman in a car park grate her car against the cars on both side, then in panic, also hit the car opposite. I felt nothing but sorry for her TBH, and was in a porsche in a city car park when the driver (male in this case) must have hit every single rim getting round the first turns.

Some people are good at driving, some people are bad at it. I'm not sure the size of the vehicle is the determining factor, although obviously getting a smaller car into a bigger parking space is easier!

Totally agree

I do nothing to dispel this myth that women are bad drivers, I reversed into a parking space the other day in Tesco and hit the pillar smashing my back light! Man behind me no doubt was saying the same thing!!