I received an advert leaflet from Sheilas' Wheels. I kid you not, it makes the following absurd and insulting claim:
"It's official - women are better drivers."
Interestingly, I can't display it here, for legal reasons not related to this post - despite the fact that I'd be advertising their advert for free. There is a different version that makes the same claim, which can be seen by clicking on the link given on the above title [not available - see Addenda at bottom of post]. However, my copy is considerably more forthright in this assertion, and includes the following justification for this astounding 'fact' in the smallprint:
"Source: Ministry of Justice National Statistics Offences relating to motor vehicles England and Wales 2006, published April 2008. Based on motoring offences taken to court."
It is with the leaflet version in mind that I write the following open letter to Sheilas' Wheels in response. A copy will be sent both to Sheilas' Wheels and the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). I will post details of any signifant response. If you would like to complain to the ASA, you can use this link to find out how. Please feel free to leave a post about it, and good luck. Update: Three years after my letter was sent, in 2012, The EU finally came round to my way of thinking and banned gender discrimination in relation to insurance premiums. Sheilas' Wheels no longer pulls this stunt.
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Dear Sheilas,
I have to say that I and my intelligence are insulted by your leaflet that arrived through my door (see attached). It claims that "it’s official – women are better drivers." The given source for this is the Ministry of Justice National Statistics relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales 2006, based on motoring offences taken to court. And as the leaflet says, I indeed can’t "argue with the facts." However, I can and feel compelled to argue with how the facts are utilised and portrayed.
Neither Sheilas’ Wheels nor anyone else is in a position to make such a claim, regardless of the evidence quoted. Evidence is not proof, whether it be statistics, empirical analysis or otherwise. The claim is akin to me saying that, for example, based on the official statistics of people’s salaries by gender, "it’s official – men are better than women at more important jobs" (see refs. [1] & [2]), or that, again based on selected official statistics, "it’s official – black people are more criminal than white people." (ref. [3])
None of these statements is 'official,' regardless of the statistics used. As we should all know, it’s more of a complicated world than that. To this end, I of course do not believe that the references quoted do in themselves show either of the above claims to be factual or official. In fact, I’m sure I could find statistics showing the contrary. However, allow me for one moment to use your own rules for establishing "facts," and make a case in point. If you penalise men in general for being "worse drivers" for committing more motoring offences, do you also penalise black men additionally for being "more criminal" and thus "even more likely" to cause a motoring offence? If not, why not? It would certainly be consistent. If the answer is "because that would be illegal and unfairly discriminatory," then why are you allowed to use the same means to "show" that women are "better" drivers than men?
Just because it seems more socially acceptable for women to discriminate against men doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I apologise for pointing out the sorts of basic morals that we were taught as children, but it evidently needs reiterating.
I’d also like to express concern about what and who makes a "better" driver. Allow me take the source you quote as an example: It is not enough to say that, based on motoring offences taken to court, women are "officially" "better" drivers. Here are some of the more obvious reasons why:
"Better" is a subjective word. What it means depends on the eye of the beholder. You cannot prove, or claim as factual, that something is "better" than something else.
The claim does not take into account the possibility that men spend far longer on the road than women. I would have thought it obvious that the vast majority of truck and taxi drivers are men. Should this be the case, then it would be out of proportion to use the statistics cited in the leaflet in order to make such a statement. Using the crash statistics of Formula 1 Racing, it would be easy to say that women drivers are "better" drivers because they never crash, but of course this would be grossly unfair because of the number of men competing in F1 compared to the number of women.
It may be the case that a small proportion of men commit multiple offences. The claim would seem to assume that each offence is committed by a different person. If a minority of men commit all of the offences taken to court, then it is unfair to say that all men are worse drivers. The statistics suggest that this is the case, but that doesn’t amount to an official confirmation.
The statistics only take into account motoring offences taken to court in one year. What about other evidence that can equally validly be used in an attempt to evaluate who is a "better" driver? What about people who are not caught committing offences, or who commit offences that are not taken through court? There is no sense of proportion and thus no fair treatment given in the statement. The statistics used are entirely and deliberately out of context to reality.
Official statistics could be used to establish the "excellence" of drivers, in the same way that your leaflet determines a "better" driver. It could then be argued that the "excellence" of male drivers might outweigh those men who are "worse" to the point that, on the whole, male drivers are still "better" than women drivers. In fact, does the absence of women in F1 not give this some credence?
Another thought occurs – which official body endorses this specific "fact"? Surely if there is no such endorsing body, this claim cannot legitimately be made.
I anticipate the claim that the leaflet is intended to be light-hearted, or tongue-in-cheek. If so, I fail to see the joke – mainly because there isn't one. It quotes evidence and attempts to assert facts, and its tone is portrayed seriously. There are no exclamation marks and there is no clue about any a jocular nature. Even if it were intended as a joke, it is certainly not in good taste. Instead, it simply seems to use a biased and severely limited set of statistics in order deliberately to portray women as better drivers, and then make the ludicrous jump to claim this as a fact. To say that men are statistically in a more high-risk category may have merit; to say that women are better drivers is simply an unfounded, sweeping statement.
As a consequence of this, I would ask that the claim be withdrawn and that people not be subject to such insulting, female-chauvinist propaganda. Furthermore, I would hope that more care and consideration be employed in the future to treat everyone, regardless of gender, with the same level of courtesy.
Yours Sincerely,
Alan Nyquist.
Footnotes/References
[1] Far more women are in part-time jobs than men - source: Office for National Statistics, Sept 2008 (link - PDF)
[2] On average men earned 17% more than women in 2007 – source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Office for National Statistics, Nov 2007 (link)
[3] According to the 2001 UK Census and the Office for National Statistics, 2% of the population was black (link). However, as of June 2007, 15% of male prisoners were black (source: Ministry of Justice Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2006, Oct. 2007 (link, see p91).
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Addenda
[19.01.10] I recently received an e-mail regarding the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. I kid you not, it features this sentence. Spot the dubious bit.
"In the medium and longer term programmes will also include temporary shelters; nutrition for women and children; control of infectious diseases and helping to rebuild the livelihoods of those affected by this disaster."
[10.06.10] As of checking today, the link to the advert that made this claim has been removed. I like to think that I had a small part in it, but who knows. It's also suspicious that a Google search of "It's official - women are better drivers" with reference to Sheilas' Wheels yields no results, including cached pages.
