How Tough it is For Females To Drive in India.

[TSIVipul]

@Vipul, It seems you got hurted a lot with girls every day

Ask any boy of my age,any college going boy and he will tell you about the behavior the public has towards them most of the time.
No one has problem with men of your age(any 25-30 or above) but everyone has problem with we teenagers.

There is some truth in ParC version, yes there is a truth in your "Boy bashing". There are careless drivers in males and females too. I observed most of the females on gearless scooters zooms away without looking at left or right what is coming and what is happening.

Haha,I too wanted to listen this only.Those bandit queens on the Activas,what about them?They do 80-90 kph and if they fell then people say "Girl was doing just 30 kph,the car walla or biker boy is at the fault".

But one truth we all have to agree that yes there is no such safety for girls to drive on Indian roads today and reasons are to many.

Hmm..+100.

Let us make a way for girls on the road and traffic and let them go ahead where we loose nothing and as true Indians render more respect for girls and women !!

How to make way,they want the whole road for most of the time.They drive in the middle of two lanes and if you blow a short horn then no response and if you blow a long horn then you are rude.

I also hope all of us have responsibility making our own female drivers to drive carefully as per rules.

+100.

it is about being self conscious. the minute you focus on the road ahead,the traffic and stop worrying if someone is staring at you , you would be a better driver.

+100,if anyone is staring then let them stare.Yes if anyone touches the car then one must raise the alarm.

the implications of beng a better driver are less accidents and in turn no further need to get into altercations with public.

+100..

regarding if one is following a car one can easily make out whether that driver is confident about the car, nervous about the car. I guess driving a SUV has it advantages where in i know who is driving and can make the necessary adjustments with regards to the space between cars to null the offset .

In case the driver is not confident then only foolish people or goons try to overtake them on narrow empty stretches.

rest, i dont see the need for people to share their personal numbers. if the need arises , i share numbers which are not working.

Let me speak once in favour of girl too:
She has mentioned,in an accident people pick up the phone,dial their numbers and keep/return it back.
Its like,if we meet an accident then most of the time phone remains inside,now if even a single nonsense person takes the number and share it with all his friends and those friends share it with their friends then the number of any girl can go viral.My GF too faced the same issue once,she also had to change her number at the end.

 

[Rajvel]

Ask any boy of my age,any college going boy and he will tell you about the behavior the public has towards them most of the time.
No one has problem with men of your age(any 25-30 or above) but everyone has problem with we teenagers.

i agree with it 100% . iam being very small driving in roads stares at me.
And which parC said is also 200% true. but myself was asking my mom to drive but she is not confident on the roads now only i can see everthing from her point.

 

[Vishwas]

The first thing for these things to happen is Gender discrimination. Unfortunately our's is a male dominated society, there are reasons and many(remember not all) fools think that they can do anything over woman.

Disclaimer:The reply posted below is my personal opinion, please ignore if it is offensive are flammable.

Ram has given good points that i wanted to mention, though i differ at some stage.

In case of women drivers:
When it comes to driving, everyone should follow the rules and no exceptions to be accepted right? Because, many of the people either give way just because she's a girl or bully them.This is tough.

If a girl wants to ride a bike/car, why should she be scared? or less confident?
come on you have decided to ride, then follow the rules, be brave enough to ride. This is how my co-sister rides. She felt scared for a day or two, she now
rides with full of confidence and drives sensibly, never care for others(people who stares), all she does is follow the rules.

So just be on your own, don't not care about others, enjoy driving.

• If we meet an accident,everyone declares us very fast,people try to find if there is any alcohol smell etc.
• In any accident,the policemen arrest we young boys even without asking what and how it happened.

What about these issues madam?Its not only females,its everyone who finds its tough,only we people don't shout and cry on it,because no one has sympathy with us,at the end we have to help ourselves.

Vipul, valid points you have brought there:

[*]Every person think we boys are mad
[*]If we have a bigger car then in no time we are declared spoilt rich brats..

That's because the rapo we had built in the recent years, can't help

 

[jayadev]

I am wondering where are we heading to?
Driving is about two thing i.e good driver and bad driver. Getting nervous because somebody stares at you is not at all an excuse . If you have such issues please do not take the wheel.
Women do get an extra soft corner and I do support that not so much to cover up individual incompetence
My wife, she knows to drive but do not bother to get herself well versed in it. Reason again-nervousness or lack of confidence. She likes to drive and fast. but moment she see a truck or bus approaching she wont mind to close her eyes .
She rides scooter very well and her thoughts on people staring at women;it is better to ignore as that is what men are suppose to do.that is what I call maturity!
I have noticed stupid driver among both male and female and ofcourse on Indian roads female driver had committed less accidents probably because female drivers are 1:50 men
.Other things maybe accounted for physical aspects, Indian women bieng shorter and somehow I believe womens are slower with reflexes comparitively,so couple of unavoidable aspects come into play for added tensions and confusions with women driver for which they do not need to blame most of the men in country.

 

[ParC]

@TSIVipul:Calm down mate,I am not bashing men.My purpose is to just mention the problems faced by women while driving in India.I have driven in other countries too but I haven't found any such problem there.It persists only in India.Maybe due to the dominance of men in our society or maybe due to the fact that we Indians always consider women to be on the weaker side as compared to men.

I accept it well that many times women driver are also rash and reckless but my point is why?
If the driver of the front moving car is a woman then half of the men start blowing horns,try to do dangerous overtakes and then they declare themselves smart saying "I overtook at foolish girl".But truth is that before declaring the girl rash or nervous,those people never wait for her reaction on that slight horn they gave before the longer one.
Can you people change a lane or two within 1 second?I am sure its 'NO',you people also need to see in both ORVM's before changing the lane,but people think that if the girl has takes 5 seconds then she is nervous.

Same way if we have to reverse then half of the people comment "Hat jao,ladki reverse kar rahi hai".It also hits our confidence level,it make us feel like we have some skills missing.
I hope you people got my points.

 

[jayadev]

True, In India anybody who is slow is considered retard.rash drivers and law breakers are awarded for their guts.
Women especially new learners do suffer humiliation in such circumstances.
But mind you an intelligent person wont entertain crazy attitudes. So who does point fingers and comments on females or slow drivers? It should be people who have no life.then Why to bother about such morons?

 

[TSIVipul]

See ParC madam,maybe you are right at your point but what is the meaning of driving between two lanes and obstructing the way of others?
About these reversing point etc,madam when we reverse then also attendant at the parking says others to get out of the way,does that mean he is making fun of us?

 

[ParC]

Exactly what I meant to say is mentioned by you Jayadev.
People just humiliate or try to humiliate women by declaring them bad or nonsense drivers just because they are women,if you people want to experience it yourself then ask your wives once to ask anyone to reverse the car for them and you will be surprised to see the reaction.
People don't react like they are helping,instead they react like they have done a favour to the woman.
When we fail to reverse successfully then no one comes to direct us,instead people are more interested in standing and laughing at their place just seeing how the poor girl is unable to reverse the car.

 

[jayadev]

@Vipul, this is not gender biased.there are hell a lot of truck driver I think almsot all of them drive obstructing others way not only truck check with Autorickshaw,Taxi's, and some govt Babus on scooters or bike I have to believe those scooter Babus are deaf too.

@Parc, it is interesting to see a lady drive a car or ride a bike especially because they are rare scene in India so accidently even I may have a second look, it should be look of appreciation though .it would be better an Individual not loose confidence due to external influence.

I am too eager to find a slution to this. Me and my wife have fights on regular basis in car as she dont want to drive and long drives become painstakingly tiring when I myself have to drive all the way.
It seems something is seriously wrong with our roads for which we men have become blind to.

 

[ParC]

Actually the external influence makes us loose the confidence,though now I am okay will all king of taunting etc but I here represent the Indian women who drive and hence I need to take in consideration the the condition of women who drive.
Many girls drive very well and are okay too but the girls who are new or get nervous behind the wheel are the ones who are targeted by those people who give them a harassment of a type on the road instead of supporting them.

TSI,now I read your post no.13 too and it looks like you are also solely against the women drivers.
The incident you mentioned points towards this only.The girl hasn't backed off because you gave her stare,but because she knew she is at fault and maybe you can get violent seeing your 'bad stare' and hence she waved you to go.If it would have been a boy then maybe you people would have picked a fight on the same.Boys also do such acts of squeezing the cars into small spaces,here you cannot blame only girls for this.

 

[mbt_india]

Women driving 2 wheelers is a common sight, at least in urban Gujarat. People are used to it and normally don't stare at women driving 2 wheelers. However, people do stare at women driving cars as relatively fewer women drive cars. On the lighter side, people will not miss a chance to glance at an attractive girl / woman irrespective of whether she is driving or walking or just standing.

 

[raj_5004]

Hi Parul,

I partially agree to what you have written about driving manners, but I totally agree to the problems which women face in our male dominated society.

Coming to driving manners, not all women are bad drivers. But I have observed that not all women are confident drivers either. When it comes to driving according to the rule book, women fare much better than men. But in our Indian traffic, you need to go out of the way and be a bit rash (if I can say so) to survive in our pathetic driving conditions. I admit, I keep my distance when I see a women driven car, but that is not because I feel she is a bad driver. I do it only when I feel she is not among the confident women drivers. Yes, there are many confident women drivers who drive better than men, but since the number of women drivers are very less in India, the confident women drivers are sparse. I am not discriminating based on gender here, please dont get me wrong... I do the same when I see a rash male driver. As far as my personal experience goes, there are good drivers and bad drivers - it has got nothing to do with the gender.

Coming to how men treat women on the roads, I have seen such incidents happening more in North followed by South. I notice that you are from Delhi, which is notorious for many such incidents and I can completely relate to what you are saying. Luckily I am from Mumbai and here, such incidents (even stares) are comparatively much lesser. But I feel disgusted about the fact that men treat women like this and I completely sympathize with you in that aspect.

So, all in all - Kudos to you for having the courage to drive on Indian roads and respect to you for bringing out this topic in a somewhat male dominated automotive forum. Cheers.

 

[dharmesh]

As far as my personal experience goes, there are good drivers and bad drivers - it has got nothing to do with the gender.

+10000 to this. My wife was very good driver. She have drove her Wagon-R from Akola to Nagpur and vice versa few times (Thats 250 KM one way and that also before Amravati-Nagpur Expressway was built). But due to various reasons she was not able to drive 3-4 years. Many things about driving she thought and yes I consider her my Guru. But in Mumbai she is very nervous to drive a car the reasons I have mentioned earlier as well, few other reasons are Rickshaw wala, BEST buses, few other lane cutters. These things have highly de motivated her. But this does not means that she is bad driver.

 

[TSIVipul]

Hi Parul,

I partially agree to what you have written about driving manners, but I totally agree to the problems which women face in our male dominated society.

+100

Its okay that such incidents happen but not to the extent.

Okay that women drivers are in a lesser number,but then look at some young girls,weather its Activa or an Alto.They drive them like hell,even NFS cars are also driven in more discipline then they do.

And when they bang with some good and calm guy then the guy is declared responsible.What about our condition?

 

[mbt_india]

@ ParC - I tend to agree with TSI Vipul. A lot of things you have written are exaggerated.

Let me share my real life experience when I was in college. I was a bachelor and stayed in a rented flat with two of my colleagues. There was a tea stall near our building where I used to have tea frequently. One evening, while returning to my flat after having tea, I was walking on the pavement on the edge of the road when suddenly something hit me from behind. I was pitched forward and landed 2 to 3 feet ahead. I was in a state of shock and couldn't understand what had happened. After a couple of minutes, I recovered from shock and realised that I was bleeding slightly and it hurt all over.

Guess what had happened? Apparently, a lady driving a 2 wheeler had lost control of her vehicle. She jumped from the road onto the pavement and hit me from behind. After hitting me, she went 20-30 metres further and fell down along with her 2 wheeler. Some people had gathered around her and were helping her to get up. They were sypathising with her and trying to comfort her. Some one offered her a galss of water. I could see and even hear all this from where I was lying. In contrast, not a single person tried to help me although I was lying just 20-30 metres away.

The point I am trying to make here is that women drivers are treated sympathetically even when they are in the wrong.

Another thing I want to say is that my wife has been driving 2 wheelers since she was in college. She learnt driving cars 10-11 years back and has been driving our car since then. Not once in all these years has she felt that she has been discriminated in any way because of her being a woman.