FTA: You must remember that women also have bosoms which makes it very difficult to turn around.

Wow . . . you fail, Germaine Greer.

That aside, in my experience only maybe 15% of drivers can park competently -- and only about 5% of drivers even make a serious effort at it. People don't care. And if you never try to park correctly, you're not going to get a lot of practice at it, so you're not going to be good at it when you do try, either.

Frankly, annoying as this problem can be, I'm more concerned about people who attempt to drive while using their phones, etc. Dodging parked cars isn't that hard, but the guy in the Chevy Avalanche who went through a red light in front of me this morning while texting away . . . yeah, let's get him off the road.

Into a bridge abutment, if necessary.

Studies have also shown that women take longer to exit a parking spot than men do.

RandomAxe: FTA: You must remember that women also have bosoms which makes it very difficult to turn around.

Wow . . . you fail, Germaine Greer.

Maybe; but if they have a great set of tits, does it matter if they can park?

In this hectic world of weaponized political correctness, it's nice to know there are still perks to being a man.

I have two pairs of shoes. One formal, one informal. All outfits coordinate with one or the other. Neither is particularly uncomfortable. Neener.

All I know is that women shouldn't be allowed to drive. My personal pet peeve is the fact that women *hate* to let you merge into traffic. they seem to take it as a personal insult.

Look. Ladies. i'm not cutting in line at the grocery store. i'm hurtling down a rain slicked highway in a giant mass of metal, ceramics, and plastic at over 60mph. move the f*ck over and let me onto the highway or we BOTH die in a massive fireball.

It's funny with all the talk about women drivers that the insurance industry has done the math and found that men are actually worse drivers.

Thursday I witnessed a male driver, while on his cell phone, drive through a snowbank, a ditch, and into a field. Merry Christmas, butthole.

ToxicMunkee: Thursday I witnessed a male driver, while on his cell phone, drive through a snowbank, a ditch, and into a field. Merry Christmas, butthole.

personally, I like it when some jackhole driving a ford F150 pickup rips past me doing 80mph during a snowstorm, then I see that jerk later down the road having lost control of his monster truck and plowed into a ditch.

My personal pet peeve is the fact that women *hate* to let you merge into traffic.

Women let me merge. You sound jealous. (I keed! I keed!)


move the f*ck over and let me onto the highway or we BOTH die in a massive fireball.

Sometimes it's necessary, of course, depending on traffic density, but if there isn't that much traffic, and they have to move out of your way, you're doing it wrong. Traffic already on the highway has the right of way.

Still, what I hate most is people who won't get up to speed on the on-ramp. Multiple vehicles all going 65 MPH and negotiating for position is one thing; five going 65 MPH and one SUV trying to enter the highway at 40 MPH is something else entirely.

eddyatwork: Ditto. There's nothing like having a whiteout blizzard where you're driving along at 40 and then having some jackass pass you in the passing lane at 75 or so and then seeing their precious little Hummer 2 in a ditch waving at you as you slowly wander by. Screw you jerk, you splashed a bunch of snow on my car so up yours. Hope you have Triple A!

that doesn't happen all the time, but yeah - I see it often enough in the mid-state for it to register with me. My other favorite is when we've got crappy road conditions (rain, fog or whiteout blizzard conditions) and i'm lead car in the pack. since nobody is in front of me, of course I slow down. but the jerk behind me is on my bumper...flashing lights, honking horns, pushing to go faster.

so I move over and let him get ahead of me. He punches lights! He moves up front! ...and then he slows down to 40mph because he can't see more than 10 feet in front of him. And the guy behind him is riding his bumper and honking his horn....

Yeah. that just never ceases to amaze me.

RandomAxe: Still, what I hate most is people who won't get up to speed on the on-ramp. Multiple vehicles all going 65 MPH and negotiating for position is one thing; five going 65 MPH and one SUV trying to enter the highway at 40 MPH is something else entirely.

This one really kills me. I have figured out why people try to merge onto highways doing 40mph: they are afraid of their accelerator. It's true. In most cases, a highway onramp is fairly short and uphill. You need to actually push your engine beyond 4k rpm sometimes. That means laying into it. And if you have a 5sp, it means winding the gears and taking advantage of the peak of each gear's power curve. It means driving "fast".

And believe it or not, most people are afraid to "go too fast". Their Chevy Canyonero has never revved beyond 3800 rpm. Ever. So when they get to an onramp, they chug up that hill like the Little Stupid Engine That Could. I see it all the time. I've seen 5-series BMW's crawl onto highways, the driver chancing to look at his side view mirror in the last 10 yards of onramp, then SLOWING DOWN because he ran out of room.

It works like this people: by the time you can see the highway, you should be at traffic speeds. NOT HIGHWAY SPEEDS. Traffic speeds. If everyone is doing 70 in a 60, you should be doing 70 by the time you plan to merge. In nearly every case, if you're doing traffic speeds you'll merge into traffic effortlessly. Really. I'm serious. Try it.

/besides, roaring up onramps is FUN!
//live a little, fer Chrissakes.

eddyatwork: I saw an Asian woman in a small car trying to do this. Remember, it's two full spaces. It took her five tries to back into the space and she took up both spaces with a farking Mini Cooper. Of course she had a cell phone glued to her head.

so I wonder if the study measured cell phone usage at the same time.
should be legal to ram drivers who are on the phone.
hell pedestrians too

So, flat-chested women will park better?

I think a lot of it boils down to:

a)not giving a shiat pride-wise about how the parking is done and concluded

b) being scared shiatless about dinging the car as in most cases it belongs to either daddy or sugar-daddy (or someone else, as in the study)

c) just watch how girls vs boys play with Matchbox cars...

eddyatwork: CitizenTed: I have figured out why people try to merge onto highways doing 40mph

Oddly enough we have the opposite in Pittsburgh. We have a perfectly good Parkway that straddles the city and ever damn on ramp has a stop sign within five miles of center city. Strangely though we have the idea of the zipper. One car on the highway moves, then one car on the on-ramp merges, and so on. It's actually quite civilized.

meanwhile, across the state in Harrisburg, it's every man for himself.

eddyatwork: Weaver95: meanwhile, across the state in Harrisburg, it's every man for himself.

Yeah but when you live in Harrisburg, death seems like a good option. Hell, I used to love changing lanes without signals because I figured the worst that would happen was I'd die and death is better than living in Harrisburg.

It does have one redeeming quality - watching all our elected officials running scared because they're worried about the next round of federal indictments. Or Rendell hide behind his wall of state police bodyguards.

I was going along at normal speed on a 4 lane (2 each way) road on 12/23, when a woman driver on a phone came out from a side street and headed right for me. I was in the middle of the 2 lanes, she had space in her lane, but decided to merge into mine, and without there being enough space.

Slamming the brakes and veering into oncoming lane was the only way I avoided being T-boned.

Stupid boont kept on going, I followed her for about a mile, got her license plate.

She never waved, never pulled over, never stopped talking on the phone.

If you drive a beige Camry in Seattle, you may have noticed a screeching of brakes and some guy narrowly avoid hitting you on Denny Way on Dec 23 around 2 pm, and you are an overweight female with either reddish or brown hair, you have been reported.

Generation_D: I was going along at normal speed on a 4 lane (2 each way) road on 12/23, when a woman driver on a phone came out from a side street and headed right for me. I was in the middle of the 2 lanes, she had space in her lane, but decided to merge into mine, and without there being enough space.

Slamming the brakes and veering into oncoming lane was the only way I avoided being T-boned.

Stupid boont kept on going, I followed her for about a mile, got her license plate.

She never waved, never pulled over, never stopped talking on the phone.

If you drive a beige Camry in Seattle, you may have noticed a screeching of brakes and some guy narrowly avoid hitting you on Denny Way on Dec 23 around 2 pm, and you are an overweight female with either reddish or brown hair, you have been reported.

You really think they even take down what you say in the report?

Generation_D: If you drive a beige Camry in Seattle, you may have noticed a screeching of brakes and some guy narrowly avoid hitting you on Denny Way on Dec 23 around 2 pm, and you are an overweight female with either reddish or brown hair, you have been reported.

should have followed her home and sat outside her house for a few days.
that will learn her

I know a flat-chested woman who is a self-described bad parker. I think I will not forward this article to her.

7of7

Men have more exciting accidents than women.

In Massachusetts sex discrimination in car insurance rates is illegal. They were talking about extending that rule to life insurance.

Generation_D: you have been reported

I read that Massachusetts recently stopped taking bad driver reports, except from police. From c. 1999 until earlier this year you could submit a form and if you told a good story about a driver with a bad record the state would summon the reportee to an administrative hearing. Complaints against police were circular-filed, of course.

Called it in as a possible drunk/impaired driver. Her being on the phone technically was illegal, combined with the dangerous/aggressive driving.

Washington State encourages those be reported.

What becomes of those, I don't know. But I would not want my car in the database, whatever the reason. I'd assume she wouldn't want hers either.

Too bad.

Generation_D: Called it in as a possible drunk/impaired driver. Her being on the phone technically was illegal, combined with the dangerous/aggressive driving.

Washington State encourages those be reported.

What becomes of those, I don't know. But I would not want my car in the database, whatever the reason. I'd assume she wouldn't want hers either.

Too bad.

Well, there's a way to get back at your enemies.

The funny thing about drivers ed is that even though we practiced parallel parking multiple times every driving session, we never practiced *perpendicular* parking. It was at my school during the summer, so you just parked in an empty lot. Much different than backing into or out of a space. Got my license but had to teach myself that stupidly obvious thing.

/decent woman driver
//2+ years of driving work vehicles to back me up
///idiot drivers come in all genders

which reminds me...

Men were typically five per cent more competent at parallel parking - where the car draws alongside anther vehicle before reversing into a bay - according to research.

Explained in the article just in case a woman is reading, and doesn't know what parallel parking is.

Yes dear, it's the hard way of parking.