There will forever be a debate about differences in driving concerning gender.  Are there really gender differences in driving? Most people say that men are the more aggressive drivers and women are just bad drivers.  Many women feel they are more aggressive than me.  Are these ideas true?  How do we know when and where gender roles guide our behavior and when our behavior results from our individual personality? By looking back at what past generational students have to say on the topic, examining people's recent experiences and other informational resources, I hope to provide you and myself with a better handle on these questions.

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Ms. Lucy's Report

    In Ms. Lucey's Report called Gender Differences of Driving Norms, she discusses gender differences in driving.  She provides the definitions of three terms that are norms, stereotypes, and expectations.  According to her report, norms are expected actions in particular situations.  Stereotypes are ?stigmatic and discriminatory labels that are placed on people.?  She applies those terms to gender differences in aggressive driving.  Her personal experiences and statistics of
aggressive driving are also discussed in her report.  She explains that men act upon their anger more than women because of their dominant and controlling nature.  Ms. Lucey distributed a questionnaire taken from Dr. James' G6 class and had eight males and eight females fill it out.  The survey contained 22 questions for Yes No answers, in order to examine gender driving norms.  However, she sees the problems on results in terms of reliability and validity.
 
 
 
 

Mr. Shintani's Postings

    Mr. Shintani (G7) wrote:

          Well I don't think that gender has a lot to do with aggressive driving? as we have discussed in class the study that someone did that says that women are more aggressive drivers. I don't think that this study is right. it could have been biased by the way that people answered the questions. I think that term is self actualization. the males might have wanted to make themselves look better. I think that a study will just have to genderless. unless a set of questions can be developed that will account for the differences that are afforded to each gender. because in certain areas women are more truthful then men, but in other men are more truthful. well that I just my views on the matter.

    Mr. Shintani brings up the issue that gender does not have much to to with aggressive driving. He believes that a study which
showed women are the more aggressive drivers is inaccurate due to possible biases and inadequacies. For instance, the test
may have been designed by males who wanted to make females look like the more aggressive drivers. Also, he feels that
women are more honest in some areas and men are more honest about other areas. I agree with what Mr. Shintani says. I do
not think that gender is the key factor in aggressive driving.  I think aggressive driving is influenced more by factors other than gender. I also agree that the test results may be inaccurate for various reasons. But, I realize that it is almost impossible to make a test which does not have some biases in its questions or contents. Therefore, the results can give us a general idea of the public's opinion and the bias' that come with it.

Web visitor Brisaacs wrote (November 1997):
    I hate to say this but it is usually the people of ethnic backgrounds, women, and older people that can not drive.

    Later in the discussion, Mr. Shintani responded to what a web visitor had to say. The visitor, Mr. Brisaacs, said that he thinks itis mostly people of ethnic backgrounds, women and the elderly who cannot drive. Mr. Shintani responds by saying that the web visitor needs to work on his problems and biases before he can tackle any other issues. Mr. Shintani further says that he believes the web visitor himself is an aggressive driver because of his statements. I feel that Mr. Shintani  cannot suggest anything to Brisaacs without being in the wrong too.  It's hypocritical to tell him  not to say things on a bias, as Mr. Shintani is using Brisaacs words as a prejudice.  I agree  that the web visitor cannot accurately comment on aggressive driving due to his problems, but Mr. Shintani cannot accurately comment on the visitor as he has too little information about Brisaacs. I do not think the visitor's comments reflect gender differences in driving, but the prejudices he has.

Ms. Ashby's Postings

Brandi Ashby (G7) wrote:

    As we have discussed in class, the people you don't expect to be aggressive behind the wheel are the ones you most need to be concerned about. I suppose that men are more aggressive; however, women are not the sweet non-aggressive creatures some perceive. I  read in the sunday paper that women are increasingly becoming more aggressive behind the wheel.

    Ms. Brandi Ashby  says that the people you least suspect to be aggressive behind the wheel are usually the ones you should be concerned about. Then she says that men are currently more aggressive behind the wheel, but women are increasing in their driving aggression. I  disagree with what Ms. Ashby says. I disagree that some people who do not seem like they would be aggressive drivers are not aggressive in life majority of the time.  If a person carries themselves in a non-aggressive manner throughout the day, they are less likely to be aggressive on the road. I  think that  normally aggressive people are the most dangerous because they have a pattern of aggrissiveness that they follow and follow through with.
 
 
 
 
 

Ms. Pacheco's Posting

Mary Elizabeth Pacheco (G7) wrote:

     As I have mentioned in an earlier reply, I have not come across much research specifying the gender behind the wheel. I only assumed that because of social norms and characteristic of the male gender, that most aggressive driving is committed by the male gender. I too am interested in the cases where women are responsible. I will start to search the web and its newsgroups. I recommend these student do the same if they haven't alreasy.

    Ms. Mary Elizabeth Pacheco admits that due to social norms and male gender characteristics, she assumes that men are more aggressive drivers than women. She also mentions that she will do more research on the topic to see if these beliefs are
accurate or not. I agree with Ms. Pacheco that social norms and male and female gender characteristics cause most people to
believe that men are more aggressive drivers. When I look at the instances of overall aggressiveness like rape, beatings, and fights, I have to accept that men are more aggressive overall.  For instance, I was a passenger in a car one day when a driver aggressively cut in front of our car to get across a four way stop. The driver in my car was about to say some choice phrases to the aggressive driver when he exclaimed, "Whoa, it's a female driver!" Due to the person's driving behavior he had automatically assumed that it was a male behind the wheel. I also agree with Ms. Pacheco's idea that we should research the topic further instead of relying on social norms and gender roles to guide our thinking.
 
 

Mr.  Lee's Posting

Wilfred Lee (G7) wrote:

    Is there much of a difference between genders when referring to aggressive driving? I thought women drove as bad as men did.  :) Or did I get my facts crossed?  Demographics, I think are not as important as treating this problem as a whole. Instead of  why  men drive more aggressively than women, we should think about why people drive aggressively. By questioning the difference between men and women we are not trying to find a solution in my opinion, but instead just looking for more why's.

    Mr. Wilfred Lee questions whether or not there are any gender differences in aggressive driving. He feels that we should
examine why people in general drive aggressively. By examining the differences between male and female drivers, he feels we
are not finding solutions to the problem of aggressive driving. Instead, he thinks we are looking for a correlation to explain the
problem. I agree and disagree with Mr. Lee's views. Overall, I agree that we need to look at aggressive driving as a
whole and aggressive behavior as a whole, instead of always breaking it up into gender differences in driving. But I also think that some gender differences in driving do exist and we need to examine these things. For instance, I notice that it is frequently young males who attempt to race with other cars while on the roadways. I personally have not seen a female attempt to race someone there. I think gender differences are not the main factors in aggressive driving, I do think they are still factors. We need to examine all the factors which contribute to it.

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Road Rage: Utter BS!
Author: Tony Wang
Email: tonyw44@prodigy.net
Date:1998/10/29

    Check this out.  As I suspected, the so called epidemic of road rage and
aggressive driving is just a crock.  It's fueled by a combination of
media hype, poor statistical analysis, and the propensity of the police
to seize on any opportunity to get more funding!
    Of particular interest is the definition that some bozo at the federal
level used to talk about aggressive driving.  He called it anything that
isn't driver inattention or fatigue.  So some dork who didn't look in
his blind spot when he changed lanes now becomes an aggressive driver?

What a crock!

    This person speaks out in rage, but has some good points.  I feel that road rage is just another time of rage for a person.  It's ridiculous that a state actually passed a law that tickets will be issued for aggressive driving.  I feel that this is a grey area, not like speeding or not speeding.  I just feel that the government forms too many laws that take away my ability to think, which is an insult.  Driver innatention or fatigue is just as dangerous or even more than "aggresive" drivers who are paying attention to the fastest way to get to their destination.  The laws on human ability is getting ridiculous.
 

Author: KillerDoc
Email: killerdoc@aol.com
Date: 1998/10/26

    One thing that these road rage studies and discussions miss out on is the
number of people who are trully enraged on the road but who don't take it out
on someone else while they are driving. They are not usually counted, but if
they are going to be they should not be lumped togther with the aggressive road
rager.  We need to distinguish between aggressive road rage and that which is
the result of being a victum of someone else's bad driving but which doesn't
escalate into maniac driving itself.   I suffer from non-aggressive road rage
To channel my anger in non-violent ways I created this simple web page with a
list of links to others like me who feel the SUVs and pick-up truck drivers out
there are the worst of them all as defined by automobile.  Let me know of any
sites that should be added.

    This person engages in prejudice against SUV drivers but I think the car that someone drives isn't the main cause for a person's driving style.  Difference in cars do change the limits of drivers but the driver still thinks on the same level of confidence.  I agree that too much focus falls on the "aggresive" driver and not the passive aggressive driver.  Passive aggresive drivers have no concern for the people around them and do not practice road norms which would make traffic flow.  It's logically simple, what would "aggresive" drivers be raging about if there were no passive aggresive drivers on the road?
 

Author: meow629
Email: meow629@hotmail.com
Date: 1998/10/23

    The most aggressive drivers I see on the roads are those darned SUV drivers!
I don't know if driving such a tank gives one a sense of superiority over all
the little peons in sedans, or if people with aggressive or superior
attitudes to begin with have more of a tendency toward buying such vehicles.

    I think that this person says these things under certain prejudices.  I think it's a coincidence that he comes across SUV drivers that turn out to be offensive.  I think people buy vehicles for every reason except a power trip on the road.  I would beleive that people with sport cars can test their limits because the car can handle diverse speed and manuevers more than a SUV.

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1. Haapaniemi, P. Cover Feature: What Women Should Know About Men Drivers
(and vice versa). Family Safety and Health, 1995, 54, 16.
 

2. Lembright, M.F., and Riemer, J.W. Women Truckers' Problems and the Impact
of Sponsorship. Work and Occupations: An International Sociological Journal,
1982, 9, 457-74.
 
 

     Miss Suzuki discusses the stereotypes of women in her report, Data Project Report: Self-Witnessing of Driving
drivers, history of women drivers.  Some research that were conducted Furnham and Saipe and Tipton, Camp and
Hsu.   In the section of stereotypes of women, she explains that because women are considered to stay home and take care of other family members, they are not capable of making quick decisions and therefore, unable to drive.  In the section of histor of
wome drivers, she illustrates that there weren't any stereotype of women drivers prior to 1910.  However, she concludes that when the number of women drivers increased, the stereotype of women are invented to maintain women's lower status in the society.  She also indicates that Furnham and Saipe has concluded from their study that, "Young males subjects with fewer years of driving experience, resulted in scoring higher on psychoticism.  Thrill ad Adventure Seeking and boredom Susceptibility and having more convictions than females."   She claims that women are better drivers than men.

    The report was prepared by Christine Tomooka and is titled "The Stereotypes of Women Drivers: From Male Conducted Research and Analysis from my Perspective." This report presents an introduction, sections on how women got their driving stereotypes, the beginning of women drivers and their effect on society, driving and gender differences.  I found the driving and gender differences section of her report interesting. She had come to the conclusion that the negative stereotypes of women drivers were invented to maintain their low social status in society. That really can be good theory, but a theory alone.  So, in this section she examines various studies to find evidence to support her idea. She does more philosophizing and correlation which leads to her conclusion.  It cannot be positively said that it was the true purpose of the stereotype.

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    There are several areas in Rothe's book where he mentions gender differences in driving. One of the areas I found interesting
was a section on children's or teenagers' perceptions on how their fathers drive. They described their fathers as individuals who
had complete disregard for the the law and safety . They also characterized their fathers' driving behavior as doing such
things as speeding and beating red lights. Another area in the book discussed gender differences in getting a license. For
instance, males typically express great enthusiasm to get their license as soon as possible. Females on the other hand did not
feel the immediate urge to get a license. In fact, Rothe reports that girls are often content to depend on others for rides..
    In class, we also discussed some of the perceived gender differences in driving. For instance, one student mentioned that girls are better drivers than boys. We then discussed if this were true or not. Some students mentioned that it appears males get into more accidents than females. They do have to take into the account that males make up the majoity of drivers on the road.  Thus, prone to more accidents.  Women are not counted if they aren't driving.  This would explain why males have to pay higher insurance rates but don't take into account the fact that there are way more male drivers on the road. Others said that in general, males are more likely to do things like race other drivers and speed. One student even mentioned that graduated licensing should only be carried out on males because females are more responsible drivers. Another ignorant prejudice at work.

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    I compared my report to others in G10 who chose the same topic I did. I thought everyone did a great job. This was a really
hard assignment and it looks like everyone put a lot of effort into it. The content and approach of everyone's reports are similar
since we followed the instructions. Presentation of the reports vary according to personal preferences. I will be able to make a
more detailed comparison of my reports with the others once all the reports are up and once I make some more improvements
on my own report.

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    I think the topic of gender differences in driving is a very interesting one. But after doing a report on it, I realize that it is an
extremely hard topic to cover. It is  hard to determine when differences are due to gender and when they are not. My advice to future generations is that if you want to further this topic and do a good job on it, you will need to spend a lot of time on it. I think it would be a good idea to conduct your own survey on the topic. Although the survey results will not reflect the general population, the results can give us an idea about gender differences in driving here in Hawaii. I also think it would be a good idea if students could work in groups to get more views on this report topic. Each student could research a section and all students could conduct some surveys. I think this would result in more informative and researched paper.