soc.women

Finally, some definitive findings that, once and for all, dispell any
lingering doubt that men are in any sense less skilled at driving
motor vehicles than their female counterparts.
--------------------------

"WOMEN really are worse drivers than men. A study published in 1998 by
the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that
women clocked auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast
to men's , though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than
women. The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving
risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be
fatal. Those statistics were reinforced by a study released by the
University of London in January showing that women and gay men perform
more poorly than heterosexual men at tasks involving navigation and
spatial awareness, both crucial to good driving.

Why women are the sex that gets into more car accidents could have a
neurological explanation. Men's and women's brains not only look
different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting
for men's generally bigger body size). The important proportional
difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space
perception -- critical to skills like driving. But visuospatial
skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind,
at which men tend to excel over women, are also related to a capacity
for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics,
science and philosophy."

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So there you have it! Another longtime argument put to rest.

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