“Spatial skills such as map reading and parking may be difficult for some women because they had too little testosterone in the womb”
For women readers out there please do not be offended of this article. Purpose of this article is to merely create awareness of road users. It has been pretty common to hear that statements like this; Women are really bad drivers. Women can’t park. They can’t read map. They can’t tell left from right.
According to scientific evidence, information does point towards supporting the common statements of men that have long held that women are not good drivers. Scientists from the University of Giessen, Germany, writing in the journal Intelligence found a lack of the hormone affects spatial ability which is important for driving duties.
Low testosterone levels are also linked to shorter wedding ring fingers, they say. The research looked at the spatial, numerical and verbal skills of 40 student volunteers. Spatial skill is the ability to assess and orientate shapes and spaces. Map reading and parking are spatial skills which men often say women lack. Women tend to disagree.
The researchers also looked at the length of the students’ wedding and index fingers. In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. In men, the ring finger tends to be much longer than the index.
For one of the spatial tests, volunteers had to tell which of five drawings could not be rotated so it looked like the other four. The other test involved the ability to think in 3D by mentally "unfolding" a complex shape.
Overall, men achieved higher scores in the tests than women. But women with the male pattern of finger length did better than those whose wedding finger was shorter. They also scored better on the numerical tests.
Fertility
Writing in Intelligence, the researchers, led by Dr Petra Kempel, said women who had 'male-like' finger length ratio patterns outperformed other women.
They added that the differences seen within the group studied were "remarkable."
However, the researchers accept that their study was limited because only one saliva sample was taken from each person, and no detailed account was taken of women's menstrual cycle, which can affect hormone balance. Other studies looking at finger length ratio have suggested that, in men a long ring finger and symmetrical hands are an indication of fertility, and that women are more likely to be fertile if they have a longer index finger.
Another study controversially suggested that finger length ratio could also be linked to sexual orientation, with lesbian women having a greater difference in length between their ring finger and index finger than straight women do.
Dr Nick Neave, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Northumbria who specialises in spatial awareness and gender differences.
He said: "Being exposed to testosterone early on does seem to affect the way the brain works.
"It seems to push it to work in a more masculine way, with a stronger right hemisphere; the spatial hemisphere.
"The extra testosterone also appears to cause the ring finger to be longer than the index."
Bones contain testosterone receptors, and Dr Neave said the fourth finger appeared to be particularly receptive to levels of the hormone. Higher levels are linked to the ring finger being longer than the index.
Dr Neave, a member of the British Psychological Society, added: "The sexes do use different skills to find their way around. Men seem to be able to keep the route in their head without landmarks, whereas women do use them.
"So men may be better at finding the car when its parked in a huge shopping centre car-park. It may also tap into driving and parking abilities."
He added: "Men do seem to be better at spatial abilities, and women at verbal and emotional skills.
"It may be a generalisation, but that does seem to be the case."
But Dr David Gray of the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University, said: "Correlation between genetic features and skills may often have an environmental intermediary which determines performance at a given skill."
He suggested skilled drivers may be those who are more practised at the activity. In addition, he said people with longer ring fingers may have dominating personalities and therefore do more driving.
"This practice would make them better at these activities and would be correlated with a physical feature, but not caused by it."
Many feel that women have poorer navigation skills and do not judge distances as well as men.
Statistics
Yet statistically speaking, women are less prone to getting into accidents than men are. Data from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System shows that about 73% of all people killed in car accidents are male, almost 3 times the number of women. Even taking into account driving distances (which are longer for men than for women on average), the number of men killed in car accidents is 70% higher than that of women.
This could be due to the fact that men have a higher tendency to engage in aggressive, risk-taking behaviour, and tend to be less patient than women. Statistics from research conducted at the University of Hawaii show that men are more likely to exceed the speed limit than women and change lanes without signalling. They are also twice as likely to make illegal turns and three times as likely to cut other drivers off. Alcohol use may be another contributing factor. In 2003, for example, 27% of the male drivers in fatal crashes had been drinking, whereas only 12.5% of the female drivers had done so.
Conclusion
In the end, statistics once again have shown male drivers are the culprits to fatal accidents almost everywhere in the world. Though parking and map reading are essential to driving but it doesn’t contribute to fatal accidents. It is just imperative that driving on the road requires awareness not just to your own vehicle but to other road users too. In the end, I should end this article by saying, male readers out there, please do not be offended by this article. Practise safe driving folks, cause we at Wheelersgate.com cares for road users.