Over this week, I had several discussions with some teens on the topic of stereotyping and one prominent example given was “WOMEN ARE LOUSY DRIVERS!”. Needless to say, those who volunteered this example were the guys. Of course I rolled my eyes at them :roll: but apart from that, I just laughed it off. The truth to be told: being a female, I sometimes also commit the treachery of accusing fellow women as “kayu drivers”. Okay, hold your tongues fellow femme. Don’t get offended so quickly. “Kayu driver” is considerably mild. At least, I don’t curse and certainly only reserve the title of “assholes” for the terrigible male drivers!

I really don’t know if us womenfolks really drive that poorly. According to this article published in BBC News, spatial skills such as map reading and parking may be difficult for some women because they had too little testosterone in the womb. But still, the research did not support the claim that women indeed have bad driving skills. And seriously, what exactly are the traits of a lousy driver?

- accident prone?
- aggressive & impatient: speeding, cutting lanes and honking indiscriminately?
- distracted: turn head around to talk or to look at other good looking drivers?
- hands off: talking and gesturing with hands off the steering wheel?
- illiterate: don’t read road signs and do not stop when required to?
- blind eye: don’t look at oncoming cars before making a turn or changing lanes?
- greedy: eating and driving at the same time?
- vain: applying lipstick while driving?
- roadhog: cruising at less than 60km/hr?
- inconsiderate: stopping at most unlikely places and making it inconvenient for other drivers to go forward?

Is it that easy to create a gender profiling for bad driving? Perhaps. But I’m not into that so I’ll just share my first-hand experiences of poor male and female drivers I’ve come across.

1. My male ex-boss
Type A personality. Rapid talker, rapid driver. His driving is tense, with abrupt jerky movements. Applies brake constantly and is better off driving alone.

2. Uncle Les
This old fogy likes to cruise on the 3rd lane, especially behind buses. “No stress level” is what he told me.

3. Ex-female colleague Chris
Drives painfully slowly and gives way incessantly. Colleagues avoid taking free rides from her to attend company events unless they wish to be unfashionably late.

4. Ex-bitchy colleague Jackie
Tailgating every other car on the highway at high speed. Well, she’s a well-known brown noser. So that explains her need to be near a rear.

So there you go, a pretty fair distribution of some lousy drivers. But wait…

Actually, there is one group of drivers I stereotype classify as atrocious. The taxi drivers, and it just so happens that the majority are men. They are the ones who cause me to frequently swear behind the wheels and sometimes to raise the middle finger! The one I encountered recently was a male taxi driver who drove so aggressively I thank my lucky star I’m still in one piece to write about it now.

Kayu: derived from the Malay language meaning dumb or stupid.