As recently as September last year, they were reporting how women were not better at parking than men. Official data suggested that women were 7% less likely to pass their driving tests than men, and that parking appeared to be a major issue.
But you can forget all that, as that well-known source of factual information – NCP carparks – provides definitive evidence to the contrary (dead link). Of course, perhaps we shouldn’t ask how they can afford to commission such pointless studies, whilst charging exorbitant fees for their services.
NCP’s “study” (and they’re calling it “research” again) was “designed” by a driving instructor, Neil Beeson – is there no limit to our skills? – who already had an agenda, it would seem, when he said:
The results also appear to dispel the myth that men have better spatial awareness than women.
It isn’t a myth, Neil. At best, the source of the problem is not agreed, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that spatial awareness is better in men than in women. Driving instructors should be working around such problems and dealing with them – not trying to deny that they exist. To quote Wikipedia:
Men on average have a standard deviation higher spatial intelligence quotient than women. This domain is one of the few where clear sex differences in cognition appear.
Beeson also says:
I was quite surprised by the results, because in my experience men have always been the best learners and usually performed better in lessons.
I can assure you that MY experience is the exact opposite. Female learners have by far the better attitude (and personal hygiene) than male pupils towards lessons. My fastest ever learner was an 18-year old female, and my slowest a 21-year old male. If someone is obviously going to drive too fast and buy a Corsa or Audi once they pass, it is nearly always the male pupils.
But putting all that to one side, I would NEVER suggest that all women and all men conform to my own experiences on this – especially those I’ve never met, several hundred miles away, and being taught by other instructors! And I would NEVER try to create a scoring system which tried to do so, because it simply wouldn’t work.
I can think I know all there is to know about one sex, one culture, and so on… and the next pupil I get from one of those groups proves me totally wrong.
The story doesn’t go into details of how the scoring system was developed, or how subjective it was in use. One telling comment is that men…
…took an average of 16 seconds to park, compared to 21 seconds for women – and they were happier with the result, spending less time repositioning the car.
But women were quicker at finding a spot, a result attributed to the fact that men often missed spaces by driving through car parks too fast, and more of them chose to reverse in, the method preferred by instructors.
If that’s a fair summary of the results, it’s hard to see how the conclusion that women came out of it better can be drawn with any degree of certainty.
Successful parking is about getting in and getting out, and not inconveniencing others. Unsuccessful parking is about not being able to get in and get out, and getting in other peoples way. Reverse parking (as opposed to forward parking) is irrelevant. The “study” appears not to have considered these things at all.
If instructors want to do this sort of thing, then fine. But to proffer it as “research” – or in any way definitive – is wholly wrong.