Lifestyle

Road Rage – Who’s worse?

Hand gestures, potty mouth and aggressive driving are the hallmarks of road rage. Who’s worse for letting rip when things don’t go smoothly on the road?

By
20 May 2021

We have all been there, behind a ‘Sunday driver’ when we are in a rush, cut up on the duel carriageway, beaten to a parking spot while we were reversing in.  And the expression ‘road rage’ was not coined for no reason! A recent survey carried out by Insurance.com has come up with some interesting facts about the ‘fairer sex’ when they are behind the wheel. 

It seems that mums are more likely to use colourful language despite the children being in the backseat while dad will let rip even if the in-laws are in the car. 

Fishwives

Even the most ladylike can be reduced to screaming harridans when they get behind the wheels (OWO readers excepted, of course!). The survey found that when it came to brake checking, tailgating and swearing in front of the children, women were right up there with the men.

Even the most innocuous drive to dance class or footie practice has the potential to descend into an X-rated performance of road rage with hand gestures thrown in for good effect!

Who is doing what?

We all know that men can often be no saints behind the wheel either.  There are commonly potty-mouthed rants and a propensity to flash other motorists just for the hell of it.  The survey set out to delve deeper into the behaviour of men and women behind the wheel. They chose five hundred men and the same number of women all with kids of twelve and under.  This is what they found:

• Forty-three per cent of men and thirty-nine per cent of women admitted beeping at someone they thought was too slow.
• Thirty per cent of men and forty-four per cent of women admitted swearing in front of the nippers. 
• Twenty-seven per cent of male drivers against forty-four per cent of women admitted brake checking a car they thought was driving too close.
• Twenty-seven per cent of men and thirty-one per cent of ‘ladies’ admitted giving a hand gesture to another driver. 
• Twenty-eight per cent of men and twenty-five per cent of women admitted that they had put their foot down to stop someone passing them.
• Men took the lead at twenty per cent who went anyway, even when it wasn’t their turn at a four-way stop against eighteen per cent of women.
• When it comes to that Sunday driver, it is the women who admit to more tailgating with twenty-one per cent of them admitting to this against just sixteen per cent of men.
• When it comes to cutting in, thirteen per cent of men and eleven per cent of women admit to driving up an empty lane next to the lane they needed to be in, to cut in at the end of it. 
• Nicking a parking space sees thirteen per cent of women against nine per cent of men admitting to this.
• Ten per cent of men and eight per cent of women admit to speeding up to block a car with an indicator on.
• When it comes to chasing another car that has cut them up, seven per cent of women and eleven per cent of men admit to doing this so that they can glare at or offer an appropriate hand gesture to the offender.
• In potty mouth behaviour in front of an elderly passenger or relative sees both sexes about equal with men at ten per cent and women at nine. 
• In the criminal behaviour of keying a car, seven per cent of men admit to having done this to only three per cent of women.
• When they were asked if they had ever pranged a car in a car park and then driven off, men and women are equally guilty at eight per cent.  

It certainly seems that it can be a jungle out there on the roads, but the survey did have a word of warning. Our children are watching us and soaking up what we do and say like little sponges. So unless we want our youngsters to grow up with a severe case of road rage we clearly need to watch what we are saying and doing behind the wheel!