Wow, how sexist is that? “Let,” as in “a man is naturally in control of conveyances”? No, of course not. “Let” as in “my wife always lets me drive.” Or, to be less British about it, “I always drive, for whatever reason.” If so, there comes a time in every driver’s life when they have to let their significant other take the wheel. Outside of alcohol-related designated driverdom, I’ve faced this, uh, transition twice. First, when my UK license was suspended. Second, on Friday, when a nature walk turned into knee destruction. And now I know why the minivan’s stoppers are shot; hurry-up and brake is not the best way to ensure pad life. It’s not that Sam’s a lousy driver; it’s just that I’m a horrendous passenger. So the answer to the above question is “only when I have to” and “hell.” You?
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I’m 76 and my wife is 10 years younger. My greatest fear is that some day I may be her unwilling passenger 100% of the time. As it is, I would much rather burn my gas than white-knuckle through a ride with her.
Now, that’s some swinging bachelor pad!
I keep it to a minimum since I’ve noticed there is a direct connection between the amount of a woman’s jaw movement and the position of the accelerator. I thought about stating that differently but I’ll let the other readers have fun with it! I actually had to tell my ex-wife (Jeez and I wonder why she’s my ex?) that the more she talked the slower the car seemed to go and that is not so good in rush hour traffic!
Great video. “The Road is not yours alone!” Dig those fins baby.
Farago did you catch the Jaguar XK 140 at around 5:17?
My spouse is a good driver, but she almost never drives when she can avoid it. She’d much rather be chauffeured around by me or our kids. Youngest just got his permit this week, so she has a new chauffeur.
–chuck
Had to when I broke my arm and could’nt shift manual gear. After a scary week getting used to it, it actually works great. I have discovered that there are things beside the road I have regularely driven for years, that I’ve never noticed before…
My wife was driving a Jeep, but I concluded that a really did love her, so I sold the Jeep Liberty put into a reliable car.
gas pedal knee or clutch knee?
Hell. On wheels. Her driving makes me carsick, and visa versa. We waste lots of gas meeting places.
Just wear your seatbelts, and relax.
Martin:
Gas pedal.
Part of being a driving instructor is riding with people on-track, but off-track the only people whom I permit to drive me anywhere are:
* My race engineer, Dave;
* My senior HPDE student and fellow NASA instructor, Jeff;
* My One Lap co-driver;
* The guy who co-owns my race car with me, because he finds riding in the car with me to be so terrifying that he refuses to do it.
99.9% of the time I’m in a car, I’m driving.
I don’t have a wife, but my sister is just as scary a driver as any of the others above. Once, she ran a red light talking to a passenger in the back seat. Another time she ran off the road multiple times whilst drinking a milkshake. Thankfully, she or my mother don’t know how to drive stick, so my car is safe. It also saves me from having to readjust my seat from my mom’s driving position where she slides the seat up so far, my knees hit the dash. But my mom isn’t that bad, and having her behind the wheel of my stepfather-to-be’s next car, a twin-turbo Lincoln MKS, shouldn’t be a problem, besides, don’t they limit it to 155?
My sympathies to posters whose spouse is a less than enthusiatic or competent driver. Luckily my wife is a superb driver; between us we have close to 50 years of accident free driving. My wife is enthusiastic behind the wheel, especially with the manual transmission, and the only time she will insist on me doing the bulk of the driving is through the mountains in western Canada.
My wife will only drive ‘her’ car; the Jeep GC. But, as lousy, slow, and over-cautious a driver as she is, she prefers to drive most of the time if it’s a family outing, and for me, that’s fine. Yeah, there are the occasional moments when our speed–or lack thereof–is worrying, and I gently remind her to speed up, but for the most part, she’s safe and polite, and I relish the opportunity to look around and relax. Plus, it helps enhance marital harmony, as she usually get nervous when I drive. She thinks I’m too fast–I’m not–but I long since gave up trying to argue that point.
Interestingly, she can drive a manual quite fine, and loved driving the S2000. Go figure.
My wife is a very good driver. If anything she’s a little too gentle on the car (the original brake pads on her ’03 Jetta TDI lasted about 160k miles!, the clutch is still original). I have no problem with her driving anytime, anywhere.
Some of the responses here seem to reinforce less than stellar male stereotypes more than anything else.
My wife is all gas and brake, but still manages to drive way too slow.
The key is to not let her drive a powerful car – keeps her out of trouble.
If that is sexist, well, the truth is the truth.
I am one lucky SOB- my wife is an excellent driver. She is great on long-distant drives (I usually fall asleep) and will go toe-to-toe with the baddest big city traffic. She loves driving our hand-fired Ford pickup to the mall during holiday shopping season- everyone lets her go first and she gets the prime parking spots.
Don’t know about you all. My wife is a Skip Barber Trained driver, knows all about slip angles and the apex. I’ve no fear with her driving.
She does, however, get about 5 mpg better than I do :)
My girlfriend is a pretty competent driver, actually. She doesn’t understand my lust for good fuel efficiency, though, so I’m constantly complaining about how fast she drives, and she’s constantly complaining about how slow I drive.
She just doesn’t do well with heavy traffic — a consequence of growing up in an isolated small town.
Phew! How much time you got, buddy? No, seriously, how much time you got – cause if she’s drivin’ were gonna need a minute…
I like to think I’m a functioning adult who married another functioning adult. Since driving is a pretty standard part of being a normal, functioning adult my wife is a pretty good driver, and I have no issues with riding with her. In fact, we very much enjoy road trips together.
That said, I’d love to get her riding her own motorcycle, as I prefer riding solo to two-up (and if I didn’t have to worry about passenger comfort I could totally score a BMW R1200 GS!) but she prefers being a passenger.
For those who have issues riding with the Mrs (or girlfriend), why? Assuming your significant other navigates successfully on their own when you’re not around, they are probably reasonable drivers. Does the car obsession that most of us share often equal being more critical of others’ driving than most people?
My ex is a fine driver, if less aggressive than I am. I slept comfortably in the passenger seat when she’d take the wheel. Though I taught her to drive a stick shift she probably got better at it than me because she commuted down Woodward for months in a Volvo with a clutch that wouldn’t disengage.
My daughter, OTOH, is one of those drivers that’s constantly on and off the throttle and gives you motion sickness.
My wife is a good driver – she inherited her skill and judgment from her father who was an avid amateur racer for most of his life. She does like to be chauffeured around town or anywhere where the driving is boring and tedious. I like to drive but I’m not a control freak so I feel perfectly comfortable being driven by her or our friends. However, when the road gets twisty and the driving spirited both of us prefer to be alone in the car.
number 565 on the list ‘1001 Reasons They Invented Beta Blockers’
All joking aside, I like it in the city, where driving annoys me, and I get to look around at things (although looking at some ‘things’ requires furtive shifts of the eyes).
On the highway though, it’s all me. My wife simply cannot stay awake on a highway so I go the driving while she snores away. Typical scene (after two hours of driving) zzzz, snort, ‘Oh look we are already at *inaudible* zzzzzzzzz’ Back to sleep.
Simple, when we take her Freestyle. She drives. When we take my G8 GT, I drive. Since her vehicle is the CUV grocery getter thingy the Sunday mass and grocery run is done with her driving. Normally, everywhere else that does not require a large cargo area is done with me driving the G8 GT. Every once in blue moon she does not want to drive so I take the Freestyle.
She does not do well being a passenger in the backseat due to car sickness and that is a factor when we are driving guests.
My wife is a good, competent driver, though she loathes driving and I love driving, so I drive probably 95% of the time. We even carpool to work most of the time. It’s not a ‘control’ thing at all. In fact, our best friends, a couple now divorced, had that issue; new bride was stuck at home, so I helped teach her to drive and this finally moved the needle off ‘zero’ for hubby to teach her. I taught my wife to drive, and she passed the test first time, here in the US.
When we lived in her home country, she had a US driver’s license, but only took a provisional license in the UK. She drove a couple of times (stick shift, too) but loathed driving in the UK.
I know more males that I don’t like to drive with than females. Most of the females I’ve driven with have been decent drivers, and my “ex” is an excellent driver. I used to hire test drivers in my previous life, and honestly, the women that we did get (not many) were usually better real-world (read safe) drivers than most of the men.
RF: my condolences. I know how it is, having busted my knee 30 years ago skiing. Us Germans say “knie heilt nie”, meaning your knee never really heals. That said, you’re probably lucky it’s your gas pedal knee and not the clutch side you’ve crushed…
My wife drives just like me – fast and fun. No problems here. Mother in law, well that is a different story!!
I don’t really have a problem when my wife takes the wheel. Most of the time she’s an excellent driver, and I take pride in the fact that I taught her most of what she knows. Plus, I am a MUCH better passenger than she is. The only complaint I have is that, like most women, she has seemingly no idea how to park.
Don’t have a wife, don’t plan on having one.
Being a control freak means that I hate being in the passenger seat in any car, particularly on public roads. Carpooling, letting a friend of some years drive my car took some getting used to and it was months before I could fall asleep with him driving.
My father doesn’t like driving with me in the car because I find fault with his driving and voice my opinion, perhaps not always in the most productive or supportive fashion. He really doesn’t like it when I critique his shifting in the Saab, so rather that listen to the lecture he just lets me drive.
I’m not entirely sure how or why but I willingly get into fast cars at road courses. For half hour or longer sessions I ride along as a passenger/student. There was that one incident where I puked after a half hour in a 993 but I wasn’t freaking out. I find that it takes me a couple of laps to become acclimated to the driver’s technique then I’m more or less okay for lap after lap. I don’t say much but I’m certainly not petrified into silence.
Don’t have a wife – got a boyfriend going on 3 years, though. (gay) Even though he is an excellent driver, I am a horrible backseat driver. I point out when we are significantly over the speed limit, under the speed limit, which lane we should be in when we are approaching a stop, and when there’s an opening for a right turn on red. I would punch myself if I was my own passenger.
When I drive, he never critiques me, he just relaxes and enjoys the ride. I am by no means a perfect driver, either. I need to take a page from him and learn to bite my tongue.
Used to have a wife. Her driving was ludicrous. Either the gas pedal or the brake was on the floor and that makes me seasick. She had an RX-7 and she looped that car on more on-ramps than I can count. On one occasion she reached over and grabbed the steering wheel while I was driving and that was the end of my driving her anywhere.
Driving qualification is part of having a decent long-term lover. My present gf – 14 years on – is competent if a bit slower than I. She’s also not critical of my driving.
OBTW: 35 years’ driving, two tickets and four stops in total by any law enforcement, never hit or been hit by anything except a deer.
I drive most of the time. My girlfriend is a safe, conservative, and competent driver who can even drive a standard, but she doesn’t like driving. Even when we take her car, she doesn’t usually want to drive, even though I often scare her while cornering (she lets out a yelp in a corner every once in awhile). I think she fears emergency situations, as she never takes her car anywhere near the limits and has no confidence in her ability to control a car at the limits. After I do something that seems physically impossible to her, I often have to explain to her things such as why the car can’t roll over just from hard cornering, or why the car won’t spontaneously “spin out”.
Wow. I think rpn453 and I are dating the same woman. Pretty much all of the above applies.
The one thing I do notice on the rare occasion when I’m able to get her to drive with me in the car is that she needs more work on being smooth, both with the wheel and with the pedals. She’s only been driving for a few years (got her license late) and riding with her I’m reminded that it takes practice to drive with some finesse.
My two ex-girlfriends are fine drivers. In both cases, neither loved driving the way I do, so I did most, but not all of the driving. My sister is a good driver (I taught her probably beginning when she was about 7 or 8 [I’m ten years older]) and enjoys it.
Love that Plymouth convertible. Ugly dash though.
Marina is good, safe driver in daylight. But her night vision isnt so good. Hella H4s haved helped some.
My wife has 3 years driving experience (mostly in the US in a minivan), I have 17 years.
Seh doesn’t have a motorcycle license, I do, so I drive vehicle #1.
She can’t drive stick, and I can’t, so I drive vehicle #2.
She is scared to death of the highway (people here move WAY faster than in her native country of Brazil. 90-100km/h is normal there, while people drive 80mph/130kmh here), so I drive on the highway.
She is very short so it is very hard for her to parallel park, so I do almost all driving in the city.
She only saw snow the first time about 3 years ago and is scared to death to drive in it.
In short, I drive about 95% of the time, but she is fine to drive herself around if she has to but she is a very cautious driver.
Before we were married, she scared me a few times letting her drive. She’s much safer now with some suggestions and guidance, but I only let her drive when we are on long road trips and I just need a break.
It’s the other way around: my wife wants me to drive.
Although I have to admit I did ban her: to the car that she crashed and still looks awful (the car, the wife looks good).
I’m lucky to have a wife who’s an excellent driver. I did some of the teaching, like turning her loose in Friday evening rush hour on Interstate Avenue in Portland before I-5. She’s a bit more conservative driver than I am, and has never had a ticket in more than forty years of driving.
It looks like the filmmakers borrowed a couple of new cars from their local Plymouth dealer. That convertible is just like my old one except that mine had the red and black interior and didn’t have the bumper wingtips. The body-color lower grille panel indicates that it was built early in the production run.
Mrs. Lokki is a Japanese girl who was in her late 20’s before she ever drove an inch. Before that there were only two types of cars for her – taxis and not-taxis.
I sent her to driving school and she learned to drive, after a fashion, but she has no interest in it, and pays absolutely no attention to any of the concepts necessary. She’s put gas into her car once in twenty years, and made one other (unsuccessful) attempt to do it herself. In short, her driving scares the hell out of me.
The main problem is that -even after 20 years – I still don’t know what she doesn’t know. One day last year she was driving, and we were searching for a parking spot at a mall. Spying back-up lights on a car, I said to her, “Let’s take that guy’s spot”. She said, “How do you know he’s going to back up?” She never knew (or had forgotten) about back-up lights. There have been two or three other similar examples…. including hi-beams, etc.
She’s quite successful at her work, but nobody there will ride with her either :-)
Ahhh, the GF’s just a shitty driver. Twitchy, inattentive, prone to erratic stopping and weaving, mechanically tone-deaf, cradles her purse in her lap, the whole catastrophe.
That having been said, I convinced her to buy an 04 Scion Xb in bright orange–h/t to Niedermeyer!–and it’s the first car she ever just flat-out loved. Doesn’t make her a better driver, but at least she gets a kick out of being behind the wheel now.
I figure the improved high-visibility color gives other road users at least a little visual fighting chance.
Outside of alcohol-related designated driverdom, I only let her drive “only when I have to” and “hell.” Mr. Farago, I think we think and act alike!
rpn453 and kavatski, my wife probably knows your girlfriends…
Conservative, safe driver, auto only. Drives herself competently wherever she needs to go. No excitement there, none at all. Not slow, not fast. To her, a car is a way to get from point A to point B, and it bores her. Even though it’s only 500 yards, if she picks me up in a pouring rain storm so I don’t have to walk from my office to our house, she trades seats to let me finish the job! Emergency situations freak her out, and even a guy spending a bit of extra time in the oncoming passing lane generates a fear response. And yet she loves going for an fast blast in the Celi as a passenger, she just has no desire to do it herself. Today, during the Australian F1 race, I was asked this question -> “Why do they keep crossing back and forth from one side of the track to the other?”. I tried, I really tried, but I don’t think she went away with any understanding of the process…
What a STUPID(!!!!!) question! Wow!! Any time she wants to, of course. I like being married to her. She drives well and carefully – not always the same thing – This is one of the moronic attitudes that makes me wonder why I would tune in tomorrow. Of course I always do. WHY do you fools value cars over people?
See, this is one of the advantages of having a male-male couple: you never have to worry about things like this.
In all seriousness, I like that everyone understands that this boils down to “Dear control freak car-enthusiasts, who are almost exclusively male, how often do you relinquish vehicular control to the most trusted person in your life?” rather than a question of overt sexism.
Like most of us, I hand over the keys when I’ve been drinking or I’m exhausted. Other than that, I’m happy to drive, and he’s happy to ride. Our backseat passengers prefer my xB to his Lancer anyway.
More relevantly, my brother’s wife was kind enough to take the wheel for one leg of an extended road trip. I got a nice nap, and she liked the car so much that she bought her own. Now we’re a two-box family.
Wow, how did I miss this one? There’s not nearly enough outrage in the comments for such an inflammatory topic, you clearly need to be less sensitive RF.
My current GF is a dream, only drives stick (is actually afraid of autos) and so does her whole family. They go a long way, as a group, towards restoring my faith in the species. She’s fast too, but until meeting me had never heard the terms slip angle, understeer etc…, she’s been feeling the limits of traction and reacting intuitively. I guess that’s where we all start down this drivergeek road though. I’m actually getting requests for a RWD lesson so I think it’s time to find a(nother) beater stick pickup.
My ex was a city girl who I taught to drive at age 22, what a nightmare. She just didn’t get physics, cars or the necessity of quick decisions. Ditched my Dakota at 20mph under no undue stress and I basically gave up hope of her getting a license. I had to flag down a bigger truck to pull us out and I couldn’t bring myself to mention that she’d been driving. This probably got me laid several times, but the whole episode was too depressing to count as a win in the end.
My curernt GF is tall, blond, gorgeous and drives like me, no regrets.
Excellent video; I may show it to my 16-year-old son with his fresh learner’s permit.
My wife drives when I’m too tired or sick (rare) to do so. She was my driver for a month when I lost my license due to a misunderstanding with the state (long story). An attorney friend advised it was best for me not to drive until the issue was cleared up. That was a difficult month because I like to drive; driving truly is a privilege.
My only complaint about her driving is that she’s heavy on the gas with a cold engine.
My girlfriend is an excellent driver. Safe, never had a ticket or accident.
My only issue is that I finally got my dream car after busting my hump for 12 years. I bought it with 50k kms on it and because I live and work downtown, it was going to last me a long time as its not used for commuting to work. It was basically purchased for fun and I love driving it. The girlfriend sometimes needs it and will take it on errands etc. No problem there. Now she decided to apply for a part time job located 30 minutes away from the house. She really wants the job for numerous reasons. Transit does not go there so she needs the car. Sometimes she will need to go back and forth twice a day adding up a shwak of kms. A lot more than I would have put on it, about 13,000 more a year (I only put 18,000kms on my last car over 3 years). I voiced my concern and she took it as me not trusting her to drive my (“our”) car. I compared it to me wanting to use her future wedding dress all the time, as I LOVE the car I worked so hard for and do not want it to retire early so to speak. That did not fly at all.
Guess I might just have to sell it while I can still recoup most of the money I spent on it and lease a GTI or something rather than have all the extra wear and tear put on a car I love and own. *sigh*
Surprisingly low key thread. My wife’s a fine driver, but not great at rapid response or taking in a lot of info while driving. So a 10 lane freeway (like the 401 in Toronto) has me driving and her closing eyes and praying. Something about male vs. female brains I guess. I could make a better passenger, though.
Usually my wife wants me to drive, but then complains she can’t drive well because she doesn’t get to drive enough.
Can’t parallel park – I either get out to direct her, switch places, or sit in the passenger seat laughing.
Speed varies by +/_ 10kph on the highway. Drives me nuts, not to mention all the other drivers who have to pass and repass us.
Tends to stay in the passing lane even she shouldn’t be there. People have to pass us on the right. Drives me nuts.
Doesn’t watch very far ahead or compute a comprehensive picture of what traffic is doing. This results in frequently jamming hard on the brakes.
Can’t figure out how to pass slow vehicles on 2-lane highways. So we get stuck behind the slowest, largest, smelliest trucks.
On 1 lane streets, she drives far from the parked cars, in the way of oncoming traffic. Doesn’t signal until she’s starting to turn into a corner. Gads, it’s CRAZY! Added to that is the knowledge that she’s one of THOSE PEOPLE who piss off other drivers and me. The sort of person who at the grocery store blocks the isle with their shopping cart.
Despite all this, I’d say she’s less likely to have an accident than I am, because she’s more risk-averse and does not respond to being bullied by aggressive drivers.
When we have to make time on long drives, I tend to drive because I can maintain a steady pace with minimal delays. But when I get tired and hand it over to her, I can’t sleep because of the unpredictable and frequent brake stabbing. Nodding-off is always abruptly interrupted by the sensation of the car braking hard, and I’m shocked to full awakenness expecting we’re about to crash. So when I go back to driving, I’m tired.
Off-road stuff and driving in really bad conditions (mountain highways in snowstorms at night) are purely my job.
More issues. She never ever services the vehicles. Before we met, she’d run her car without service until it broke down. She ran it until the timing belt broke. It was not easy to figure out what happened because the gas guage hadn’t worked for years. She never fixed anything. One time a garage failed to secure the lug nuts on one wheel. She was the first to drive the car, and reported to me something sounded funny. It took me about a second to diagnose the problem, but she’d been highway driving. Actually, that one shut her up for a while.
She never cleans the vehicles and seems to make the biggest mess in them. She objects to me maintaining over them, but fully appreciates having a nice vehicle to use. Oh, and did I mention she SLAMS the doors?
Then there’s my sister who lives in Alberta. She believes that if a man and woman are in a car, it’s “not right” if the woman is driving. Stone age, huh?