I was invited on to Liverpool’s CityTalk Radio yesterday, on Paul Jacobs early evening programme, to say how Tory party’s road spokesman Robert Goodwill’s proposals about the driving test might affect women drivers.
Allegedly, routine tasks like parallel parking, three point turns and reversing round corners are to be removed from the test itself, to be signed off by instructors in advance when they believe their pupils can do these things well enough in real life rather than during a stressful driving situation like a driving test.
Paul Jacobs took the tongue in cheek opportunity to suggest that women would welcome this proposal as most of us can’t do these things… a point I was quick to disabuse of course.
The fact is that driving lessons don’t teach anyone to drive, only experience added to theory can, and it is young men not young women drivers who are the ones that cause most accidents (96% of all dangerous driving offences and 86% of speeding offences are caused by men) so that gender should be the communications target, not women.
Furthermore, novice drivers, who are usually young, used to being told what to do in life and short on driving experience for obvious reasons, are greatly at risk and put others at risk during their first three years of driving (one in five new drivers will have an accident in their first year of driving and this rises to one in three if aged 17 to 20 years).
This is the important issue not the sideshow of stressful test conditions causing excessive nerves.
I’m not sure why the Tories are involved here? Is this a vote puller in any way? Will the young voters be impressed? Could it be that the numbers of learner drivers are falling and this could have a knock on effect on road taxes in future, and the Tories will need all the money they can raise when they next get into Government?
Either way, making tests easier is not the solution.
Why not try more female instructors for a change and see if that reduces the misguided confidence that too many young drivers have? Taking the car dealership experience, that I do know about, many men prefer to buy a new car from a female sales person because they can ask her questions they wouldn’t admit to a man they didn’t know the answers to.
There may be some gender dynamics to be exploited in a similar fashion using a greater number of female instructors (some 20% of the workforce…) to male pupils rather than the male to male relationship and that gender’s innate interest in the performance of cars and speed.
And more refresher tests soon after the test when novice drivers can relearn some of the theory in the light of their driving experience. And then regularly for the rest of us. Who can say they wouldn’t benefit from the likes of an IAM’s driving course every ten years – especially if it meant lower car insurance premiums for us all, not just women drivers.
FOXY Steph
PS: Other than representing women drivers’ best interests on the radio, find out how FOXY Lady Drivers Club can help women drivers run safer and greener cars, save money and have a friend to turn to when motoring gets stressful…
