Men & NSW drivers Australia’s worst – report
August 10, 2009 by Matt Brogan
A recent survey published by Galaxy Poll has discovered men admit to being Australia’s worst drivers while NSW motorists have been found as the country’s “most rude and dangerous”.
The survey also divulged that men were more likely than women to admit to driving recklessly with more males polled saying they’ve failed to give way, stop at pedestrian crossings, use the horn more often, speed or have been involved in a road rage incident.
And while it’s these admissions that have put men in the bad books it is women who seem to get more upset by poor behaviour on our roads with 52 per cent of females polled saying they were “annoyed by drivers who failed to give a wave of acknowledgment for courtesy”. Only 44 per cent of men seemed to mind in the same situation.
Although NSW drivers were rated as the worst in the country it seems that south of the border Victoria drivers were found to be those most likely to speed or provoke road rage.
As for what ticks us off, it seems poor road etiquette upset us most with 85 per cent of those surveyed saying they were annoyed by drivers who failed to indicate.
Second on the list were drivers who failed to indicate or check their blind spot when changing lanes which annoyed 73 per cent of those polled.
The poll was carried out for insurer 1Cover with managing director Eddie Feltham saying he was not surprised by the findings:
“This is reflected by our claims data, which shows men have far more accidents than women,” he said. “In fact, it is an industry-wide standard that car insurance premiums are more expensive for men.”
Let us know what you think. Are women better drivers than men? What poor road habits get under your skin? Leave a comment now.
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Did they survey Victorian females for this poll?
IMO the worst drivers are taxi drivers followed by some of the elderly, young P platers and recent migrants of both sexes.
Quote ” Are women better drivers than men?”
Insurance companies may tell you they are .Thats just because of all the small dingles they have they dont or cant be bothered getting fixed,hence not as many claims made as men .
My close girlfriends have a keen interest in cars like me and from that experience I feel we are better drivers for it.
haha i wanna go down there then and cut someone off or something. i hope they follow me cause they wouldn’t be able to keep up
Wholeheartedly agree with you BM!
But there are times when our young and or young at heart sisters getting occupied with makeups and the likes whilst driving. Scares the hell out of me.
On stereotypes of which states are better. We do lots of drives in NSW and VIC… Strangely, despite WIDER roads, VIC drivers comes out worst for us typically as they can’t seem to stick to their own lanes. Yet, Sydney roads are narrow and crap but the drivers there stick to their lanes better. Oh, and VIC drivers seems to have probs with merging. Less so in Sydney.
Just our own perception and experience.
Perth, flat and wide roads, like a big airport, very laid back driving attitude over there.
Agree with the article, lots of road rage in VIC from what we have seen.
Of the places we have driven, we liked driving in Europe Best.
just coz i am guy my insurance premium is higher than a girl in the same age group…. isnt this sexist?
This is not to take a shot at women, but men are much better drivers, its just that we don’t keep our cool as well as women. On public roads women are probably better drivers, but when it comes to professional driving, I don’t think women can compete. Plus how many times have you gone on a long trip with your wife or girlfriend where she didn’t want to drive and thus you have to drive.
not surprised
P platers are the best drivers, just ask one…
This survey was done back in 2007 the UK ,but somehow I still think its most likely correct…….men dont change do they :) god luv em all………
“The average man would prefer to spend time polishing his precious car than pampering his beloved partner, a new survey shows.
Up to 44 per cent of those polled said they had given their vehicle some attention over the previous two weeks, with 20 per cent spending more than two hours cleaning and polishing, a survey from UK car sale website fish4cars showed.
Yet 10 per cent of men admitted that they had never shown that level of attention to their partners – ever.
And 40 per cent of men surveyed had not bought their loved one a present for more than a month.
The survey of more than 1,000 men also revealed that 28 per cent of them dreamed of owning an Aston Martin and 21 per cent spent a lot of time fantasising about lazy afternoons spent zooming around quiet country lanes with the window down and the music blaring.
Also, 29 per cent of men dream of having an amorous encounter behind the wheel of a car.”
I think we could dig a little deeper here and delve into the development of humans and our primitive instinct of survival.
Boil it down to the basics, men hunt, and want to dominate, be in front of the pack. Women nest, nurture and are more passive in nature. Normally these primitive instincts lay dormant until a trigger like stress and fear forces them to the surface and bang, we become monkeys in a jungle fighting over territory. Thing is, when I suffer from road rage a little voice says “You are doing the wrong thing, back off a little, don’t blow the horn”
But you can’t help it; the urge is just too great.
I don’t care how civilized you think you are, that primeval monkey is always just below the surface ready to attack as soon as you loose four meters on the road and about three seconds traveling time.
Hey Yazo, you drive a Bugatti Veyron then if no one can keep up with you? However fast your car is there is someone out there with a faster one.
I am really surprised that NSW drivers are seen to be worse than us Victorians.. I personally find it hard to drive while watching my speedo constantly to make sure i am not snapped for going 2 km/hr over the limit…. Damn speed cameras. Having driven around Aus. for work and pleasure, I would have to say that ACT drivers are by far the best!! Put your blinker on and they let you in.. they actually slow down at roundabouts.. and they don’t sit 2 inches from your bumper in a race to get to the next set of traffic lights!!
I think Vic drivers in any other state than Victoria are the most infuriating drivers. They are more than happy to go with the flow of traffic back home but woah soon as they hit a freeway or highway in NSW its BANG! Slam on the brakes, 10km/h under all the way.
Also, How did you come to the conclusion NSW drivers were worse than VIC?
You say:
“Although NSW drivers were rated as the worst in the country it seems that south of the border Victoria drivers were found to be those most likely to speed or provoke road rage.”
“NSW motorists have been found as the country’s “most rude and dangerous””
So NSW drivers are more ‘rude’, but does that really make them worse? Is speeding not one of the evils that creates a bad driver? It all sounds a bit dubious.
Victorians bless them stll like to speed. Without it their state budget would go into deficit and some senior police wouldn’t have an easy way to the top by distorting the road safety message, to a simplistic one of speed cameras as an answer to everything.
Maybe what this survey shows more then anything, is we need highly visible police presence on our nations roads, booking everyone for anything and everything that is not just speed related. So that we begin again to take driving as a skill that needs attention, respect and courtesy to be safe and efficient way to get from A to B.
Heck we might even want to think about defensive driving training for every licensed driver, every five years or so, along with a road rules test to get the 90% of people who still don’t know how to use a roundabout, on the right track.
Women aren’t better drivers, they are just more oblivious to what is going on around them
I wouldn’t say in my experience NSW drivers are the worst but we’d probably be the most aggressive for lane changing etc.
Victorians tend to drive a bit like the stereotypical Camry driver ie stuck in the overtaking lane doing just under the limit oblivious to what’s going on around them.
Queenslanders I’ve found tailgate the worst (even compared to F3 drivers) & don’t indicate. I also find they tend to not give way to pedestrians at crossings if they can get away with it.
On the same day that CarAdvice post a code of conduct for comments.., one of which is “Please be advised that comments of the following and similar nature will be moderated with immediate effect:
Comments of a profane, offensive or prejudicial nature ”
.., they ask the question “are men better drivers than women?”
……..,
Studies into social acceptance and peer bonding have found that people who rate themselves as socially gifted tended to be the rated the opposite by a mixed sample of people, with the higher the personal rating the lower the peer rating. The theory behind it basically goes that the more socially inept you are, the fewer physical and verbal cues from peers you will pick up on as a result of your deviations from group social norms and behaviours. Its the whole ‘look around the room, if you don’t see a d*ckhead, then you’re the d*ckhead’ thing. As a result they are insensitive to the negative feedback, however subtle, from peers that more socially aware people would pick up on and use to modify their behaviour to better fit into a peer group.
Now given this survey is the self-assessments of men and women, a similar mechanism could be in play. Women rate themselves as better drivers on account of their lack of skill preventing them from noticing their lack of skill. The “I don’t cut people off” because they don’t have the situational awareness to notice they have cut people off.
Having said all that, I’m not saying that women make worse drivers (although from the number of people that have tried to merge onto me when riding my motorbike, the side mirror is the one mirror women don’t waste their time looking at), I’m saying just because more men admit to driving more recklessly, doesn’t mean they actually are more reckless.
Well in my experience of 14yrs of driving in NSW,ACT,VIC and QLD, QLD takes the winners trophy as the worst drivers by a long shot. Just my opinion but it is shared by most people I have talked to who have driven up there. (except Queenslanders =P)
It’s fairly common knowledge that men, for the most part, have better spatial ability than women, and driving is mostly a spatial thing. I’m sure most of us men have gone through a narrow gap knowing there’s enough room, while your wife/significant other clenches up, thinking you’re going to have an accident.
The problem is that men are also far more competitive and arrogant, especially when it comes to activities like driving. Look at racing drivers: the vast majority are male, and competitive, arrogant males at that. If men didn’t take the risks we do on the road (not saying I’m innocent of this) then we would have far less accidents than women.
I don’t mean to offend anyone by this, but the simple fact is that the male brain is far more focused towards physical activities which involve spatial ability, and driving is one of those activities.
most females drive SUV, half of them dont even realise when they hit a car or a pole until after they have reached home ….
case in point, i saw a lady driving a SUV at a supermarket car park , scrape the entire drivers side of a car park next to it while reversing out … and she had no idea … completely oblivious of the fact that her tank has just taken out another car….
i find these sorts of researches very offensive and generalistic, so if any of my above comments have offended anyone, i couldnt really give a rats……
another stereotype. our group of girls are on two wheels, we think we are better drivers because we are riders.
I think it’s the same for guys, but… the ego and the arrogance often gets the bikie guys undone with painful lessons.
Oh well, just give me cheaper insurance, this survey will do.
The road rage photo at the top is a mirrored one from America isn’t it?
Most people wear both thier watches and wedding rings on their left hand.
CA, my comment from 3:54pm is still awaiting moderation…Why?
A vast generalisation! All it proves is that men are willing to admit they are not the best drivers… women on the other hand….
Too many ignorant DH on the road that’s for sure.
Tailgaters are my pet hate. I use to get angry but there is no point as many of the fools driving like this are half wits and just don’t get it.
Would have more respect for police if they actually patrolled suburban streets rather than revenue raising gold mines and booked idiots for tailgating or excessive speed in suburban side streets.
New report just in!
NSW men most honest in Australia.
What a question, what a topic. Comon CA, is this a way to ban people ?You cant ask a question like that and expect saintly answers from everyone.God I hate political correctness, I’m sick to death of self censoring, I just want to let rip and tell the truth.
Tom I loved your post, are you studying or have you studied psycology, you made profound sense on a site that is too often devoid of any sense ( from the people that is, not the articles )
I would like someone to study and write a thesis on the reasons why goddamn Queenslanders refuse to keep left, or use the left lane at all, this goes for professional drivers too, I hate these pricks with a passion.
OOPS, forgot to be PC, looks like my post will be pulled soon.
That picture is of an off duty Sydney bus driver.
^
better yet a brisbane city council bus driver
hehehe I just love that pic!
An angry Camry driver.
Ahhhh…………. now you get it!
If you had to drive a Camry you’d be cranky too!
I hate surveys like these. Are they meant to make you better drivers? No. Are they making the roads any safer? No. Will results be different when surveying different people? Yes. My advice is to stop wasting time on pointless surveys and see what can be done about drink driving and underage driving.
I’ve lived in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney… and I must say that if you indicate to change lanes, Sydney drivers are the most likely to speed up and not let you in. It just shows the general selfish nature of Sydneysiders.
These comments arrive periodically as if diarised.
Driving is an individual skill that needs to be tackled by and with each individual. Simplistic nonsense like ‘drivers won’t heed the message’; ‘take off 5′; ‘the fatal five’ and other useless broad comments just ignore real safety. First thing that is required is to get rid of all the sycopants who get promototions by promotiong revenue raising.
The new immigrants are the worst drivers, they don’t understand/know the road rules, slam on brakes then indicate to turn etc.
It’s very annoying how they try to merge or try to drive in 2 lanes at once. Also they don’t understand what give way means.
I don’t know how they got their license.