After decades of male taunts over their driving skills, women can take heart from a new study on Monday revealing that they are actually the better sex when it comes to parking.
A review of CCTV footage from 700 British car parks and interviews with 2,000 drivers found that when a range of factors are considered, including the method used and the time taken, women come out on top.
The research looked at seven areas, including how fast drivers found a parking space, how they drove into it, how long it took to park, how much they repositioned the car, and the final result. Out of a maximum score of 20, women had an average result of 13.4, while the average male score was just 12.3.
Men fared better than women in some areas, including speed — they took an average of 16 seconds to park, compared to 21 seconds for women — and they were happier with the result, spending less time repositioning the car.
But women were quicker at finding a spot, a result attributed to the fact that men often missed spaces by driving through car parks too fast, and more of them chose to reverse in, the method preferred by instructors.
{{/usCountry}}But women were quicker at finding a spot, a result attributed to the fact that men often missed spaces by driving through car parks too fast, and more of them chose to reverse in, the method preferred by instructors.
{{/usCountry}}And after all manoeuvres were complete, 53% of women were found to have parked in the centre of the space, compared to only 25% of men.