A British car insurance company says male drivers have far more accidents in the summer than women do. The (alleged) reason: dudes are distracted by ladies' short skirts.
The Telegraph reports that according to numbers released by car insurance company Sheilas' Wheels, men made 16.4% more claims last summer than in other seasons. And while 25% of men said they'd had an accident or near-accident in the summer over the last five years, only 17% of women said the same. These stats don't really seem all that impressive to me, but a rep for Sheilas' says, "In the summer [...] men are significantly more likely than women to claim during the summer months - often as a result of wandering eyes." The rep offers no data to back up this last part, but, bizarrely, behavioral psychologist Donna Dawson concurs:
Men are more visually orientated and so distractions such as an attractive woman walking down the street can quickly take their attention away from driving and the job in hand.
Wait, is she talking about handjobs? Seriously though, I highly doubt that men gawking at scantily clad women is a significant cause of road accidents. As it turns out (and that you could maybe tell by the name) Sheilas' Wheels markets its insurance specifically to women — maybe they're trying to score points with ladies by taking potshots at men. If that's the case, it's not working on us — especially because the real male driving risk is obviously masturbation.
Image via Roman White/Shutterstock.com.
Male Road Accidents Soar In Summer Due To Women's Short Skirts [Telegraph]
DISCUSSION
One could just as easily interpret these results to mean that women only drive badly in the winter, when there are genuine challenges such as poor visibility, ice on the road, etc., while men just drive badly all year round.
ETA - I do think, however, that men are more prone to not paying attention when something catches their eye. Not because they're more visually stimulated, just because they're not constantly trained from birth to be very very careful and don't you dare ever make a mistake the way women are.
Example - last Friday I was waiting at the bus stop when a dude drove up, spotted me, and, as he got closer, pulled out a camera and started filming me. While he was driving. In a giant fucking SUV. Also, creepy leering, ew. Anyway, it gets better - when he passed me he turned around and leaned out of the window so he could keep filming me while he was driving away. Did I mention that this was on Friday evening on a busy street? I was in jeans and a tshirt, so the short skirt theory does not apply here - he was just being an idiot. Road safety, dude, it's important, especially if you're going to drive around in a vehicle that could probably run over an antelope and barely even feel the bump. There were kids on that street.