who is driving...

[minicar]

Hi,

Sometimes I feel upset when dh drives for longer journeys unless I specifically ask to drive. It bugs me a little when I see mostly women in the passenger seat. Too much time on my hands?

that is weird grimble! for various boring reasons today i dropped off dp and took the car to work instead. so i drove all the way, with no seat-swapping

I spend a lot of time driving the car and therefore when we are both in a position to drive I have tended to default to him. The kids have noticed (and they are only 5 and 3) even though I am the one who drives them around the most, that when both of us are in the car he is the one doing the driving. I am now redressing the balance so I get even more time behind the bloody wheel.

However, I am the one who gets us to our destination quicker . I am also the one with a tendency for more points on their license (although it is clean at the moment). There is a correlation.

I always do the long drives. DP is better at amusing the kids than I am and He can read or email when they nod off. I get sick if I'm a passenger for too long and reading or looking at a screen makes my head spin.

I used to let DH drive all the time because a) i'm lazy b) i wasn't very confident as he'd done all the driving for years and c) that's just 'the way things were'.

What changed it for me was when we got our own car. I wanted to be able to take the dc places and felt bad that they'd be missing out because i was a wuss. Also i read somewhere (could've been on here!) that it was important to for my DD to see me doing 'dad' things e.g. driving, fixing stuff, etc and for them to see DH doing 'mum' things e.g. baking, going to dance class, etc.

Anyway once i started driving more my confidence increased as i realised i actually enjoyed it and i was better at it than DH. I also make DH do baking with them sometimes. Much happier all round this way!

DH tends to do the driving on long journeys with the family, but that's because in the car he turns into a whiney git who cannot shut up critiquing and second-guessing my driving ("you need to change up a gear here" "you should be in the middle lane here" "watch out for that lorry, it may pull out") and it is the difference between us arriving a happy family or him arriving with the ice-scraper sunk into his entrails. He hates being driven by anyone, it's not personal to me, he just thinks he's the best driver of all time and gets physically itchy if we take a taxi and the driver doesn't do exactly as he would do...

I've been told by a female friend that she doesn't mind getting a lift with me because I 'drive like a man' - by which she means I don't dither at junctions or pootle along at 20 miles an hour... raaah!

I love to drive and do lots of motorway/long-distance driving and actually think I'm better at it than DH - I'm not the one with points on my licence for speeding :o However, he can't navigate for shit, so it's easier all round if he drives and I do the map reading.

My dad was a motor mechanic and was insistent that all his children (male and female) learnt to drive (and change a tyre/battery/spark plugs/oil etc), it was like a badge of honour to him - but he preferred to drive whenever necessary. My mother (now late 70's) only learnt to drive about 20 years ago and prefers to be driven whenever possible, but I think that's more her nervousness over motorways, night driving and parking than any 'female' quality. One of my brothers has CP and can't drive, so she taxis him about a fair bit.

I tend to drive as I've been driving longer so insurance and main car all in my name and DH hates driving with me in the car as I moan about his driving apparently! If he just did as exactly as I do it would be fine