Wheels Rants

All the women who are independent
Throw your hands up at me

I hereby today declare myself the member of the growing of men who consider women behind wheels as a mismatch. Why, you asked? Just a moment ago I had another experience that seems to show that a car in a woman's control is a dangerous thing.

I was driving down the road after lunch of nasi kandar next to the infamous highway towards Summit-USJ at the first junction from the roundabout before entering the road. People would normally turn in here to escape the jam if they want to go to Sunway as the other way through NPE is quite jammed in front of the Mentari Business Park, or to the vicinity of SS13 for example me, today, or just think they have the right to be first if they paid more road tax by jumping queue to the junction out back to the highway some 100m ahead.

Anyway, normal people who want to turn into any junction, let alone this one, would slow down, check if there are any incoming traffic from the left or right before making their way in. Today, one of the many I myself and several ex-colleagues at a nearby office can tell you, had another car coming out without even looking if anybody else is coming down the road. The car just drove in when I was coming down at 60kmph, causing me to brake some 1m or so behind it. Good thing I am used to such eventualities as I worked in that area for more than five years so I am normally a lot more cautious when I come towards that junction.

I shook my head and thought, "There's another one".

Again, it was a woman. From my glance at the driver as the car made a turn down the curved road, she doesn't seem to notice anything at all while talking to the passenger besides her.

This seems to lend more evidence to the theory that a woman behind the wheels develop a certain problem of 'tunnel vision' that causes their perspective to be narrowed dramatically to include just the windscreen. Furthermore, this complication causes their necks to become stiff, further aggravating the problem of this 'tunnel vision'.

The experience that had me wondering if it were true (I spoke about this with many guys before) happened less than six months ago at the Pyramid parking lot. I was again travelling down the path to the exit and was following the main queue towards the exit barrier. From the left were cars who would come into the lane and exit as well.

Surprise, surprise, another sufferer of this 'tunnel vision' syndrome drove ahead of me when the right of way was mine - I wasn't slow enough to allow anybody to come out anyway - and yet this woman just jumped in as if there were miles of space between my car the one ahead of me. Being a cautious driver as everybody should be, I braked in time with space to spare after noticing that this one might just do the stupid thing.

Those two were just one of the many myself and other guys could tell you about. My cousin once told me of him waiting for a parking bay as a car was on its way out. As soon as he was to take the space, a car just came and drove in. He stopped and asked the woman what was the problem as she, I don't know if being shamed or something, confronted him back saying that she saw nobody and the parking space was hers. I assumed that the 'tunnel vision' causes her eyes to missed his car on the right side of road with bright yellow signal lights blinking.

And the countless stories of women parking - the problem of making an arc to park instead of a direct turn that causes them to maneuver the car in and out before its in - at the same time causing the entire road to halt. That's not too bad compared to those who take up 110% of parking space by putting their cars on the line.

And did I tell you about how dangerous women are on the road? Some are better racers than Raikonnen or Capirossi but lacking in terms of positional awareness.

The ladies are welcomed to flame me for this post with all sorts of feminista replies calling for justice against sexism but you would just be barking up the wrong tree. Guys do such things too but it had never been more glaringly frequent than when it involves women drivers.


Car Size vs Brain Size Correlation

Another interesting bit of theory I had was that regarding the inverse relationship between the price of the car to the brain of the driver. It says that a driver who drives pricier cars ie. Mercedes, Accord, Camry, BMW etc have less civility on the road compared to those driving cheaper ones.

Throughout my life as a driver on the roads of Klang Valley, I have encountered the usual problem of people jumping queues, speeding and tail-gating, pretty often with me being the one being bullied.

In queue-jumping for example, the (impatient) guy from the back would drive out of the queue towards the point the road would split from where they want to go, signal and force their way in. Some, if not most, don't even signal. And whilst waiting for the row of cars to move, you can see their faces - they wouldn't even look at you, noses high, seemingly oblivious of their little stunt there.

And I observed that the people who normally do this are drivers of big, expensive cars, and women.

All right, I admit I do speed some times especially if the road is clear but you have these big cars going at over a hundred, weaving in and out of the traffic like they're Pro License holders of the FIA. I don't really mind them speeding if they do find the road to be too slow for their liking, but what's the problem with using the other free lane to overtake if we're being too slow.

It's ridiculous when you consider that whilst you drive at a 'leisurely' pace of 85kmph on a 90kmph highway, one of them big cars would just have to come within breathing distance of your neck and flash their highlights telling you to get out of the their way. Sure, I know I should but what's the problem with overtaking my car using the left lane which had no cars coming? There were times when I'd feel like hitting the emergency brakes hard to teach them a lesson - cars hitting into the back of another had always been the guilty party - it would wreck the back of my car too but his repairs will be many more times costlier. If I were lucky he'd have to pay mine too; but I've always inherited Dad's attribute of 'stir no hornet's nest', and just let them through.

I don't believe this has anything to do with the lack of education as being able to drive vehicles that costs a decade of my salary would normally mean they would be able to afford top class education compared to us peasants, otherwise how would you explain about them being paid such salaries for what I assume are important positions in corporations? Better still, having children inside those cars learning from their parents.

And we decry the lost of civility in our society. :rolleyes:

The theory is still arguable though, so feel free to join the feministas in your flames.