{"id":7120,"date":"2011-10-23T20:25:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-23T20:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=7120"},"modified":"2023-07-01T10:18:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T09:18:39","slug":"women-spend-more-on-driving-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=7120","title":{"rendered":"Women Spend More on Driving Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is an old post.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A very confusing news release from the Press Association says that women take more lessons to pass their tests than men [link dead].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In itself, that is no big deal, but the article goes on to say that women take “an average of 22 driving lessons compared with a figure of 16 for men”. It doesn’t define a “driving lesson” (i.e. how long are these lessons?) And it then goes on to confuse the situation even more by saying that 20% or men and 10% of women don’t take lessons from an instructor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I teach people as quickly and efficiently as I can, and I can assure you that the average number of hours is not 16 or 22 for men and women, respectively. My fastest ever learner (female) did it in 17.5 hours, and I’ve had a few (male and female) manage it in between 23 and 29 hours, but most take 30+ hours. So I can only assume that the “lessons” referred to are 2 hour ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole story is based on a survey by Co-operative Insurance (at least it doesn’t pretend to be “research” this time – that’s what these things are usually sold as). A Co-op spokesman says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our findings show that men tend to need less practice before passing their test, although this doesn’t necessarily make them the better drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, because women tend to take more time learning to drive they are likely to have built up more experience of the road before they pass their test.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This generalisation is highly misleading, since some women pass quicker than some men, and many people – male and female – are still rubbish drivers, even after 100 hours of lessons, because that’s how they choose to behave. In addition, what people say about themselves (and their driving) is hardly something that should be taken as gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only widespread source of data for how many lessons people took is the people themselves!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the Co-op results are similar to\u00a0these done by confused.com<\/s> a couple of years ago, although the angle is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n