History Main / WomenDrivers

** The Canadian version has gone through six seasons now. So far the 'worsts' are three men and three women. Mind the season five "winner" was pretty much the DumbBlonde brought to life...

** The Canadian version has gone through six seasons now. So far the 'worsts' are three men and three women. Mind the season five "winner" was pretty much the DumbBlonde brought to life..

** Regarding Katherine Legge's crash not generating any comments about women drivers, even the most douchey person can't reasonably blame driving ability when a rear wing element broke off going into a non-banked flat-out corner. Unlike some crashes where the most skilled drivers would have a chance of saving the car, it was a amtter where the best driver in the world would still have been going into that wall.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Pinkracecar.jpg
[[caption-width:459:Spot the woman driver]]

--> ''Huh. Didn't know they made Cobras in automatic...''
-->-- [[GunsmithCats Bean Bandit]], on being introduced to a female professional driver

* Justified and subverted with Britain's Worst Driver and its international spinoffs. Justified in that the shows are [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Exactly What They Say On The Tins]] and that it's TruthInTelevision, subverted in that the male contestants are no better.
** The Canadian version has gone through five season now. So far the 'worsts' were two men and three women. Mind the season five 'winner' was pretty much the DumbBlonde brought to life.

** Regarding Katherine Legge's crash not generating any comments about women drivers, even the most douchey person can't reasonably blame driving ability when a rear wing element broke off going into a non-banked flat-out corner. Unlike some crashes where the most skilled drivers would have a chance of saving the car, it was a amtter where the best driver in the world would still have been going into that wall.

* In an episode of ''TheJetsons'', Jane goes in for her driver's license much to the horror of the driving instructor. When Jane is forced by a bank robber to be his escape vehicle, the instructor professes concern for "that poor creature" -- not Jane, but the robber she's driving.
** When the instructor first sees Jane, he turns a dial on the "Student Driver" sign on the car that makes it read "Woman Student Driver: Beware".

This trope was born shortly after the turn of the century and lasted more-or-less up to the first great wave of 1970s feminism. It had its heyday in the early post-WorldWarTwo era when, because of mass migration to the suburbs, many women in their thirties and forties were learning to drive for the first time, and American cars were uniformly huge, overpowered, underbraked and under-tired.

Still sometimes used in fiction set in the Asian parts of the world and {{California}}; the common joke here is that everytime you see a car do something incredibly stupid (as opposed to incredibly dangerous or obnoxious), chances are the driver is a woman. With a high probability of them [[AsianDrivers being Asian]]. It's also very popular in the comments sections of car accident videos on sites like YouTube.

* Allstate has recently taken to [[http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/08/16/depicting-teens-cell-phones-suvs-and-mayhem playing this trope]] in their commercials with "Mr. Mayhem" pretending to be a teenage girl (whose SUV, of course, [[PrincessesPreferPink is pink]]) who gets distracted while texting (in one version just from a normal text, in the other by becoming "emotionally compromised" by a text about a by she likes, adding ''more'' UnfortunateImplications) and slamming into another car without noticing. Mr. Mayhem seems to quickly be becoming TheScrappy, and with good reason!

* This trope makes a Bloody Hilarious appearance in the television show Mad Men, when [[spoiler:a John Deere lawnmower is brought into the office. Everyone's having plenty of fun until a secretary jumps abroad and drives over the new executive's foot, crippling him for life. Possibly in combination with the constant drinking that is Sterling Cooper.]]

Still sometimes used in fiction set in the Asian parts of the world and {{California}}; the common joke here is that everytime you see a car do something incredibly stupid (as opposed to incredibly dangerous or obnoxious), chances are the driver is a woman. With a high probability of them [[AsianDrivers being Asian]].

* Allstate has recently taken to [[http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/08/16/depicting-teens-cell-phones-suvs-and-mayhem playing this trope]] in their commercials with "Mr. Mayhem" pretending to be a teenage girl (whose SUV, of course, [[PrincessesPreferPink is pink]]) who gets distracted while texting (in one version just from a normal text, in the other by becoming "emotionally compromised" by a text about a by she likes (adding ''more'' UnfortunateImplications) and slamming into another car without noticing. Mr. Mayhem seems to quickly be becoming TheScrappy, and with good reason!

--> ''Why couldn't HelenKeller drive?''
--> ''Because she's a woman!''

** Tellingly, Katherine Legge is not known just as much for looking [[http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.a.cnn.net/si/features/2008_swimsuit/images/sections/other_danica-patrick_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2008_swimsuit/danica-patrick/&usg=__vELbOlKAq-6UL8Y8OiiFy-mf3XA=&h=300&w=415&sz=25&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=KHTwxqe7xDy6NM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDanica%2BPatrick%2Bswimsuit%2Bphotos%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1 extremely hot in a swimsuit]] as she is for being a racing driver. As such...regarding Danica ''specifically''...HypeBacklash moving toward {{Hatedom}}, especially from many who ''despise'' the sexualizing of their chosen [[strike:sport]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSzgwCql_mo&feature=PlayList&p=7FB9E612DADF7978&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=26 drug-of-choice]].

** Tellingly, Katherine Legge is not known just as much for looking [[http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.a.cnn.net/si/features/2008_swimsuit/images/sections/other_danica-patrick_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2008_swimsuit/danica-patrick/&usg=__vELbOlKAq-6UL8Y8OiiFy-mf3XA=&h=300&w=415&sz=25&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=KHTwxqe7xDy6NM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDanica%2BPatrick%2Bswimsuit%2Bphotos%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1 extremely hot in a swimsuit]] as she is for being a racing driver. As such...regarding Danica ''specifically''...HypeBacklash moving toward {{Hatedom}}, especially from many who ''despise'' the politicizing of their chosen [[strike:sport]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSzgwCql_mo&feature=PlayList&p=7FB9E612DADF7978&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=26 drug-of-choice]].

Still considered TruthInTelevision in the Asian parts of the world and {{California}}; the common joke here is that everytime you see a car do something incredibly stupid (as opposed to incredibly dangerous or obnoxious), chances are the driver is a woman. With a high probability of them [[AsianDrivers being Asian]].

** Tellingly, Katherine Legge is not known just as much for looking [[http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.a.cnn.net/si/features/2008_swimsuit/images/sections/other_danica-patrick_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2008_swimsuit/danica-patrick/&usg=__vELbOlKAq-6UL8Y8OiiFy-mf3XA=&h=300&w=415&sz=25&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=KHTwxqe7xDy6NM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDanica%2BPatrick%2Bswimsuit%2Bphotos%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1 extremely hot in a swimsuit]] as she is for being a racing driver. As such...regarding Danica ''specifically''...HypeBacklash moving toward {{Hatedom}}, especially from many who ''despise'' the women's lib politicizing of their chosen [[strike:sport]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSzgwCql_mo&feature=PlayList&p=7FB9E612DADF7978&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=26 drug-of-choice]].

* Women do have more at-fault accidents per mile driven than men do. The reason that men's car insurance rates are higher is that the average man drives more miles per year than the average woman, and a higher percentage of accidents caused by male drivers include a fatality.
** It should be added that if it ever becomes less taboo to talk about the fact that the differences between the genders are more than, well, genitalia, we might even get a good explanation for this.
*** Because everyone expects women to be poor drivers, so they tend not to drive as well as men? It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.
*One thing that could reinforce this stereotype is in low speed crashes (where the gender of the drivers will be visible) [[http://www.totallymoney.com/news/index.php/2010/06/men-and-women-have-different-types-of-car-accidents/ women are more likely to be involved. Men are more involved in high speed highway crashes]] on the other hand, where there is a lot less standing around waiting for the police to arrive.

Still considered TruthInTelevision in the Asian parts of the world and {{California}}; the common joke here is that everytime you see a car do something incredibly stupid (as opposed to incredibly dangerous or obnoxious), chances are the driver is a woman. With a high probability of them being Asian.