Women Drivers are Safer! (Okay, maybe not in Amman, but...)

Carnegie Mellon University recently published a study that found that American men have a 77% higher risk of dying in a car accident than American women. Ha! Take that! I've known for many, many years that the old American stereotype that women are bad drivers is untrue. Now, partially that's because I know I drive more cautiously than pretty much every guy I've ever been in a car with. It's also partially because when guys start shouting at those stupid women drivers it's because the women are in the way of them doing something illegal or dangerous. So, for many years I've been offended by the bad-woman-driver jokes and comments... then I moved to Amman.

As much as the stereotype still offends me, women here drive terribly. I don't know if it's a visibility thing, a practice thing, or what, but nearly every time a car changes lanes nearly hitting me (seemingly without looking first) a woman is driving. It has caused me to doubt my gender... I can no longer defend women drivers as I see first hand how inconsiderate and truly dangerous they are. I don't believe it's because they mean to, but rather it seems they are more unaware (or uninterested) in what's going on around them. And yet, it saddens me that I can't defend my gender. Oh well, maybe someday we'll have a public service awareness campaign to improve driving skills :).

Speaking of PSAs, further to my previous one about car seats, the safest passenger is a child strapped into a car seat being driven during morning rush hour. So, read that carefully (since all day every day is rush hour traffic in Amman). Children in car seats are the SAFEST passengers in the US.

Drive safe, ride with an American woman!