Big Cars, Little Women

The headline of this article should get your blood boiling. It does mine. Because I hate that women are seen as too dainty to drive big cars. Here’s why this couldn’t be further from the truth…

- Juliet McGuire

Having been a motoring journalist for the past 12 years, I’ve had the pleasure of driving just about every single kind of car that’s been offered in our market. And I have never once thought that, as a woman, I should not be driving a certain car. In fact, I think the opposite. There’s no car too powerful, too big or too quick for me or any woman, even if ignorant men such as Red Bull GmbH Formula One Teams’ advisor Helmut Marko will have you believe the opposite. Wheels24 reported that the former racing driver said that he had doubts that any woman would make it into F1. He said, “Wheel-to-wheel fighting at 300km/h means you must have some brutality. I don’t know if that is in the female nature.” He also remarked that women are not strong enough for 4G-plus cornering forces.

Does this not sound a bit like the myth that women are bad drivers? Because the irony is that studies have shown women are far better drivers than men. In one, it was found that 80 percent of all auto accidents that kill or seriously injure pedestrians involve male drivers and, according to most studies, it’s because men are too aggressive behind the wheel. But then, you might ask, would this not mean that they would be better at F1 racing, like Marko says? I doubt it – because this type of driving behaviour also leads to more mistakes. And mistakes while driving can be deadly.

One just has to google “women drivers” and the results will give you an indication of just how bad the “woman as bad drivers” stereotype is. And the worst part is that many women buy into it, which completely baffles me. And, yes, I have experienced some shocking driving from women (I’ve also experienced bad male drivers, by the way), but I think I can hazard a guess as to the reason.