Wife is a menace on the road...what to do?
Discussion
Something I read somewhere explained it
It all goes back to the hunter/gatherer thing. Men were hunters and developed highly attuned powers of co-ordination and anticipation because their very lives depended on it - if they got it wrong then a mammoth or bison would remove them from the gene pool. Over millennia these skills have been passed down from father to son and this is why men can operate cars with great skill.
Women on the other hand were the gatherers. Nobody dies picking berries, so there was no natural selection. In modern women the gathering instinct has evolved into the shopping instinct. Driving just doesn’t come into it.
Apparently it could take up to two hundred thousand years before women ‘catch up’ and become competent drivers. Until then we’ll just have to endure kerbed alloys, dented and scratched panels, piss poor parking etc.
It all goes back to the hunter/gatherer thing. Men were hunters and developed highly attuned powers of co-ordination and anticipation because their very lives depended on it - if they got it wrong then a mammoth or bison would remove them from the gene pool. Over millennia these skills have been passed down from father to son and this is why men can operate cars with great skill.
Women on the other hand were the gatherers. Nobody dies picking berries, so there was no natural selection. In modern women the gathering instinct has evolved into the shopping instinct. Driving just doesn’t come into it.
Apparently it could take up to two hundred thousand years before women ‘catch up’ and become competent drivers. Until then we’ll just have to endure kerbed alloys, dented and scratched panels, piss poor parking etc.
vincevega said:
Something I read somewhere explained it
It all goes back to the hunter/gatherer thing. Men were hunters and developed highly attuned powers of co-ordination and anticipation because their very lives depended on it - if they got it wrong then a mammoth or bison would remove them from the gene pool. Over millennia these skills have been passed down from father to son and this is why men can operate cars with great skill.
Women on the other hand were the gatherers. Nobody dies picking berries, so there was no natural selection. In modern women the gathering instinct has evolved into the shopping instinct. Driving just doesn’t come into it.
Apparently it could take up to two hundred thousand years before women ‘catch up’ and become competent drivers. Until then we’ll just have to endure kerbed alloys, dented and scratched panels, piss poor parking etc.
Don't let Emma Watson catch you saying that.It all goes back to the hunter/gatherer thing. Men were hunters and developed highly attuned powers of co-ordination and anticipation because their very lives depended on it - if they got it wrong then a mammoth or bison would remove them from the gene pool. Over millennia these skills have been passed down from father to son and this is why men can operate cars with great skill.
Women on the other hand were the gatherers. Nobody dies picking berries, so there was no natural selection. In modern women the gathering instinct has evolved into the shopping instinct. Driving just doesn’t come into it.
Apparently it could take up to two hundred thousand years before women ‘catch up’ and become competent drivers. Until then we’ll just have to endure kerbed alloys, dented and scratched panels, piss poor parking etc.
I would make some notes on a particular journey.
Then tell her you are very worried about her driving as you feel it is unsafe and could lead her to getting into a serious accident. You WILL be met with vengfull responses by the sounds of things, but you must, must remain calm and refrain from raising your voice, being nasty in any way.
Talk through each point. State what you observed, why it was bad. Ask her what her thought processes at the time were (if she can remember...she may not) and if she agrees that, in hindsight, they were unsafe.
With things like this, you have to let the person reach the same conclusions you have by letting them work through the problem and analysing the details.
Be persistent. At the end of the day, her driving could result in injury or worse, and not just to herself. The very fact you are posting online here about it suggests you are very concerned.
If she refuses to acknowledge her poor driving, then simply refuse to be a passenger with her.
And dont expect you to be a perfect driver either. She may come back at you with critisisms about your driving. If so, talk through them and work out if indeed you can make a change to your own driving.
Reflective practises are a very good way to learn from experieince
Then tell her you are very worried about her driving as you feel it is unsafe and could lead her to getting into a serious accident. You WILL be met with vengfull responses by the sounds of things, but you must, must remain calm and refrain from raising your voice, being nasty in any way.
Talk through each point. State what you observed, why it was bad. Ask her what her thought processes at the time were (if she can remember...she may not) and if she agrees that, in hindsight, they were unsafe.
With things like this, you have to let the person reach the same conclusions you have by letting them work through the problem and analysing the details.
Be persistent. At the end of the day, her driving could result in injury or worse, and not just to herself. The very fact you are posting online here about it suggests you are very concerned.
If she refuses to acknowledge her poor driving, then simply refuse to be a passenger with her.
And dont expect you to be a perfect driver either. She may come back at you with critisisms about your driving. If so, talk through them and work out if indeed you can make a change to your own driving.
Reflective practises are a very good way to learn from experieince
MarshPhantom said:
Not long after I moved in with the O/H I was filling up at our local petrol station when I saw my girlfriend drive round a corner and into the back of a stationary Corsa - in my car. She'd only driven about a hundred yards from our house.
I laughed out loud at this. Sorry, it's just I have this image of you going "For f*** sake" and her saying "I don't know what happened".
SturdyHSV said:
It gets labelled as chauvinistic, but based on the evidence it does seem that what the OP is experiencing is by no means uncommon...
The differences in each gender's spatial awareness and such are scientifically documented, so you may well be out of luck there. If her vision is poor, she's probably (without realising) finding the whole situation a lot more difficult than is necessary, a lot more stressful, and a lot more worrying.
In any other situation in life, you wouldn't be surprised if someone feeling particularly stressed and dealing with a fairly difficult task was a little snappy in response...
Add on to that, people generally don't like being criticised, and especially not for something seen to be as simple as driving.
Now we don't know your wife's mind, is she a very confident woman who is completely comfortable in her own skin (do these even exist)? If she isn't a confident person, the criticism may well go down even worse, she may be sitting there thinking you're constantly judging her (which you are) and again, that isn't going to lead to a relaxed drive for her, exacerbating the situation. There's a whole world of amateur psychology you could delve in to, but it may be worth trying to understand the situation from her point of view (although try not to apply too much logic to it
)
Any suggestions of IAM will have to be done as a pair as an absolute minimum, alternatively perhaps you go first as was suggested. The thing is, she has to want to as everyone has said, and inspiring her to give a damn is the tough bit.
One suggestion that has worked for me is to point out fuel consumption (if she is paying for her own fuel...). Once it becomes about saving money (for shoes! ) it may then become of interest to her. Furthermore, criticise the mistakes in others, there's plenty of them about. Point out that muggins in front is following too close and having to brake all the time, and explain how as you're just hanging back a bit, you're not having to brake, and you're using way less fuel, and it's so much more relaxed.
You stand a better chance of success if you try and unite against other people's s
t driving and try to encourage driving defensively as a means of saving money and of course being safer overall. Taking on board the premise that every other car on the road could do absolutely anything at any time, no matter how stupid (at the moment she is this person for everyone else it seems) and that you, together, are taking some simple, sensible precautions to generally be a bit safer and more relaxed may well do her driving some good, and crucially, mean that she even takes a bit of an interest in it, which puts her at an advantage to 95% of other road users.
Just to get this back on track though, yeah, all women are, quite literally, insane behind the wheel, and are completely incapable of taking even the slightest comment without it being taken as a direct affront to them and their entire family that should be punishable by death. They all drive staring simply at the windscreen, they see no further than that. When the windscreen fills up with darkness or red lights, they apply the brakes. Once it looks like daylight again, they crack on.
Most terrifying is how long they can leave the wipers on after it stops raining. What are you doing that whilst driving a car, you don't notice something flicking across your field of vision constantly and making a loud squeaking noise? What the hell else aren't you noticing?!
That is absolutely hilarious because I forgot that that was EXACTLY another thing she did on that short trip that I described...and those were exactly my thoughts! That is: "What the hell else haven't you noticed?" The differences in each gender's spatial awareness and such are scientifically documented, so you may well be out of luck there. If her vision is poor, she's probably (without realising) finding the whole situation a lot more difficult than is necessary, a lot more stressful, and a lot more worrying.
In any other situation in life, you wouldn't be surprised if someone feeling particularly stressed and dealing with a fairly difficult task was a little snappy in response...
Add on to that, people generally don't like being criticised, and especially not for something seen to be as simple as driving.
Now we don't know your wife's mind, is she a very confident woman who is completely comfortable in her own skin (do these even exist)? If she isn't a confident person, the criticism may well go down even worse, she may be sitting there thinking you're constantly judging her (which you are) and again, that isn't going to lead to a relaxed drive for her, exacerbating the situation. There's a whole world of amateur psychology you could delve in to, but it may be worth trying to understand the situation from her point of view (although try not to apply too much logic to it
)Any suggestions of IAM will have to be done as a pair as an absolute minimum, alternatively perhaps you go first as was suggested. The thing is, she has to want to as everyone has said, and inspiring her to give a damn is the tough bit.
One suggestion that has worked for me is to point out fuel consumption (if she is paying for her own fuel...). Once it becomes about saving money (for shoes!
) it may then become of interest to her. Furthermore, criticise the mistakes in others, there's plenty of them about. Point out that muggins in front is following too close and having to brake all the time, and explain how as you're just hanging back a bit, you're not having to brake, and you're using way less fuel, and it's so much more relaxed. You stand a better chance of success if you try and unite against other people's s
t driving and try to encourage driving defensively as a means of saving money and of course being safer overall. Taking on board the premise that every other car on the road could do absolutely anything at any time, no matter how stupid (at the moment she is this person for everyone else it seems) and that you, together, are taking some simple, sensible precautions to generally be a bit safer and more relaxed may well do her driving some good, and crucially, mean that she even takes a bit of an interest in it, which puts her at an advantage to 95% of other road users.Just to get this back on track though, yeah, all women are, quite literally, insane behind the wheel, and are completely incapable of taking even the slightest comment without it being taken as a direct affront to them and their entire family that should be punishable by death. They all drive staring simply at the windscreen, they see no further than that. When the windscreen fills up with darkness or red lights, they apply the brakes. Once it looks like daylight again, they crack on.
Most terrifying is how long they can leave the wipers on after it stops raining. What are you doing that whilst driving a car, you don't notice something flicking across your field of vision constantly and making a loud squeaking noise? What the hell else aren't you noticing?!
Has your wife ever been diagnosed with DYSPRAXIA ? http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/dyspraxia-ad...
Might be quite mild case of dyspraxia...maybe. Is she any good riding a bicycle, for example ?
Might be quite mild case of dyspraxia...maybe. Is she any good riding a bicycle, for example ?
hondansx said:
Serious question - how strong is a relationship if they don't take on board serious concerns for your (singluar and plural) safety?
Normal for most healthy heterosexual marriages IMHO Women don't listen to advice, take it as a personal insult, and in fact go out of their way to up the fight. Mention their driving once, and they will either drive faster to spite you (but only when you are in the car) or refuse to drive, because you make her "nervous" ....it will be a front, to make you feel guilty that you dared to speak out.
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