[MotherBear]

This won't help matters. ?Male pride and all that. ? ::)

Women beat men in licence tests
14 October 2006
By PATRICK CREWDSON

Women can claim greater mastery of their cars than men can, according to fresh figures showing pass rates for driver licence tests. Figures issued by Land Transport NZ under the Official Information Act show that more than 32,000 men and about 25,500 women failed licence tests in the past year.

Twenty people took more than 10 attempts to pass their tests, including two who had to sit their restricted tests 15 times. Failed tests netted the Government nearly $3 million in fees.

Women had an average pass rate of 81 per cent across all age groups and car licence levels ? learner, restricted and full ? compared with 79 per cent for men.

The gender gap was widest among teenagers sitting their full licence test, with 88 per cent of girls passing and 81 per cent of boys. The overall pass rate for teenagers across all licence types was 81 per cent.

LTNZ spokesman Andy Knackstedt said the higher pass rate for girls made sense, because girls generally had a better driving record than their male peers and were less likely to be involved in crashes or to kill or injure someone else on the road. Sixty-five teenage boys and 18 teenage girls died on New Zealand roads in 2005.

Driving instructor Julian Wright, of Triple A Driver Training, said though males were slightly more likely than females "to go wild behind the wheel", age was a more important factor than gender in vehicle-handling proficiency. "Younger drivers tend to be somewhat more overconfident. Occasionally they have the abilities to back up that confidence but usually not."

With teenagers excluded, men were better off, with 78 per cent of males aged 20-plus passing their full test, compared with 76 per cent of females in the same age bracket. The figures included 1382 people aged 65 or older ? mostly sitting the theory exam ? with an overall pass rate about 72 per cent.

About 20,000 more men than women sat licence tests. The statistics exclude people who failed because they did not appear or because their vehicle flunked the pre-test.

Mr Knackstedt said LTNZ did not aim to pass or fail a set proportion of drivers. Its main concern was that tests were conducted "fairly and consistently". It did not profit from driver licensing, as fees were set by law to cover the costs of administering the system.

- The Dominion Post