Poor driving or poor manners?

This is one of those areas where the difference in the sexes is highlighted or played down. Man or woman, anger is a problem. And road rage? Even more a deadly expression... errhh... I won't say that again. It is something that shouldn't be expressed while on ramming machine speeding at 100kmph.

Time for some diversion.

Read on...

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Women are calmer drivers? Not when I'm behind the wheel

Road rage is just as much a problem for mums as it is for dads

by Erin Baker
The Daily Telegraph

"Calm down," I mutter, as I ease my car between the bus lane and the fat SUV that's trying to force me into it.

"Calm down," I repeat, as the traffic light turns green but I can't move because there's an idiot in a van blocking the junction.

"Calm down!" I shriek, as another idiot in a BMW, who knows he's in the wrong lane but reckons he can carve me up, edges forward.

Invariably, the mantra wears a bit thin about half an hour into my morning commute.

By the time I arrive at work, my blood is fairly fizzing. You see, I'm not very good at handling road rage.

Just ask my mother - she's still sweating from the time we had to drive at speed around the supermarket car park, slaloming through the trolleys to escape a large and surprisingly fleet-footed man whom I had called a "bloody idiot" for honking at her when she tried to reverse into a space.

So, I find it hard to believe that women are statistically less likely to succumb to road rage than men.

However, a survey this week of children aged between five and 16 found more than half think they have a calmer, safer journey when their mother is driving.

Fathers are accused of being more aggressive and driving too fast.

This, despite the fact that seven out of 10 children said their mothers were more likely to stall the car when pulling away from a junction, and 64 per cent claimed that reverse parking was beyond Mummy's capabilities. Ouch.

Most of the children questioned about road rage won't realise that low speed doesn't always equate to safety (few adults seem to get this point, either).

It might feel safer to have Mummy sing a song with you while pottering down the road at 40kmh in a 60kmh zone, but Daddy's more aggressive progress could be more appropriate for the road conditions. That's why it's female drivers who incite my road rage more than male ones.

At least men know they're carving you up. Women, generally, have no idea of the chaos they're leaving behind.

It's not that we're less intelligent than men - and we're certainly more capable of multi-tasking. It seems we just can't be bothered.

Take that puerile "Baby on Board" sticker, for example.

You know the one: It makes you want to jump out at the lights, knock on the window and say: "I was about to ram your car from behind, but thank goodness I saw the sticker."

How many men would display that sign?

There's a difference, too, when it comes to how we exhibit our road rage.

Mothers aren't any calmer behind the wheel than fathers - they're simply more subtle. Instead of shouting and swearing, we silently seethe, and enact our revenge in more elegant ways (unless you're my friend Jo, whose child's first words, picked up after months of her driving, were "****ing moron").

Instead of shouting at Mr Carve-You-Up, a canny woman will beat him away from the lights, thus forcing him to drop in behind, then briefly slow down to make her point.

She will inch up alongside the SUV that is hogging her space because the driver has no lane discipline, thus alarming him/her into shifting back into the right lane.

Far more satisfying than a list of expletives.

Given that road rage affects both sexes - but in rather different ways - the real cause for concern should be the behaviour that incites it.

As a spokesman from the breakdown coverage company that carried out the survey said: "Kids exposed to poor driving could ... copy this action when they start to drive themselves."

That's "poor driving", not "poor manners".

Road hogs take note.


Lifted from TODAY, Commentary - Friday, 30-April-2010
Women are calmer drivers? Not when I'm behind the wheel
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'FEROCIOUS ATTACK' LEAVES M'SIAN CONSULAR WORKER DEAD

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SYDNEY - A Malaysian consular employee was stabbed to death in a "ferocious attack" outside his Sydney home in a suspected road rage incident, officials said yesterday.

The 43-year-old man, who worked as a driver for the Malaysian consul-general, was beaten and stabbed in inner-city Leichhardt by two men late on Sunday despite an attempted intervention by a female passer-by.

"It was a ferocious attack, there's no doubt about that," said Detective Inspector Shane Woolbank.

The authorities said they were examining whether the attack stemmed from a road rage incident moments earlier involving a dark-coloured sedan, the police said.

Malaysian Consul-General Mohd Nasir Abu Hassan said the victim, a Malaysian who had recently become an Australian citizen, had worked as a driver for the consulate for three years.

"This is a very stressful time for all of us at the consulate," he told reporters.

"We got on very well with him and we were shocked when we heard this tragic news." AFP

From TODAY, Tuesday, 23-Feb-2010

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HE WAITED FOR PREY IN THE LOO

SEXUAL ASSAULT

Ong Dai Lin, dailin@mediacorp.com.sg

HE WAITED for the seven-year-old boy in a public toilet at the Yishun Community Library. Then, on the pretext of helping him urinate, Chan Kok Weng sexually assaulted the boy.

Yesterday, the driver-cum-deliveryman pleaded guilty in the High Court to one charge of performing oral sex on the boy on April 27 last year.

Chan, 29, was having lunch at a coffeeshop near the Yishun library at 1pm on that day while waiting to pick up his father from the hospital.

Chan later hovered around the library’s premises to look for “targets” - young boys going to the toilet alone.

At around 1.50pm, the victim’s mother took him and his sister to the library. The mother later took the boy to the male toilet at his request.

Chan, who noticed what was happening, immediately went into the toilet to wait for the boy.

The victim then entered the toilet alone. There was no one else there.

Chan approached the boy on the pretext of helping him urinate and told him to remove his shorts and underwear.

He later lured the boy into one of the cubicles and performed oral sex on the boy.

Chan became afraid when the boy’s mother called for her son. He immediately helped the boy put on his shorts and underwear.

He also helped the boy to wash his hands. The boy then left the toilet while Chan remained inside.

The boy’s mother noticed that his hands were wet and he related to her what had happened.

The woman immediately informed the library staff and one male staff went to check the male toilet.

He found Chan hiding in a cubicle and the police were called in.

Chan faces a jail term of between eight and 20 years and at least 12 strokes of the cane.

He is the second man to be convicted under a sexual assault provision that was included in the Penal Code in February last year.

In March, a 26-year-old water cooler repairman, who performed oral sex on a seven-year-old boy in a school toilet, was sentenced to 10 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane.

From TODAY, News; Friday, 15-May-2009

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