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Is there anything to the stereotype about women and backseat driving? I had not given the issue much thought until I read this in the Babylon Bee:
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https://babylonbee.com/news/look-out-shouts-female-astronaut-as-orion-gets-within-5000-miles-of-moon
When I read this article, I was immediately reminded of both my mother and my ex-wife. Despite many polite and gentle reminders that unsolicited advice on the road is generally distracting and unhelpful, neither of them are that great at resisting the urge to backseat drive.
Is backseat driving really a gendered issue? And if so, what is it about female psychology which makes this so common among women? Perhaps it's just more common for couples to go places with the man driving; that if women were driving it would be men who are stereotypical backseat drivers. From personal experience, I can say that neither my father nor myself do much in the way of backseat driving.
I am asking this question in the culture war thread because female nature is a culture war issue; there is a societal taboo against putting women as a group in a negative light. I am interested in peoples' thoughts independent of the taboo.
Edit: Having had a chance to think about this, I have a hypothesis to throw out:
Backseat driving is driven by an instinctive desire to assert control over a situation. Thus, both men and women have a tendency to backseat drive since pretty much everyone has this kind of instinct. But there are a couple of differences: First is the social expectation for the man in a couple to drive. Second, women are much more averse than men to taking responsibility. The result is that rather than back-seat drive, a man is much more likely to just drive.
Here's a thought experiment: Suppose a couple is driving along and the woman starts back-seat driving. The man might say something like "Ok, why don't you drive?" (And this really happens.) In these types of situations, the woman typically declines the offer. By contrast, a man is more likely to say something like "ok, sounds great, pull over and let's switch places."
The thing that it doesn't seem like anybody is bringing up - A lot of people genuinely drive very, very aggressively, to an extent that makes it natural for a passenger to feel nervous, and the drivers themselves don't really realize this.
I tend to drive very smoothly and defensively. I maintain enough following distance that my lead driver could suddenly slam on their brakes for no reason and I would be able to react in time. I take my foot off the gas and coast toward red lights and stop signs. I brake fairly early for stop signs so that I don't have to brake very hard.
A lot of drivers tend to maintain shorter following distances that don't give them an opportunity to react to sudden stops by lead drivers, and keep their foot on the throttle all the way up to the point where they hit the brake for a red light or stop sign. And they brake very late. If you are a person who tends to drive less aggressively, and especially in situations where you would have started slowing down for an obstacle several seconds ago if you were the driver, it genuinely feels like the driver hasn't noticed the obstacle, because it feels to you like if they had noticed it, they would have started slowing down for it by now.
I think a lot of aggressive drivers genuinely don't understand that their driving is aggressive, and genuinely don't see the issue with keeping the foot on the gas all the way up to the point of braking for an obstacle, so they don't understand that their driving feels to the passenger like they haven't noticed the obstacle.
Women are probably more defensive than average drivers, and men are probably more socialized to not challenge other men on their driving habits, and these two things do probably combine to create the stereotype of the unbearable woman passenger... But I think the root issue here is genuinely aggressive and dangerous driving habits.
If we're speculating that this isn't just an artifact and that there's a there there, my bias based on personal experience is that this is a factor. The only friends I have that are at all defensive about their driving habits, to the extent that even grabbing the handle when they're driving gets a side-eye, and pointing out anything wrong with their driving could cause a shouting match, are male. As such, I learned to put on an act when driving with such friends. I speculate that it may be a consequence of testosterone and/or the greater societal pressure to be seen as competent at such activities that men have relative to women.
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I agree that may be a factor, but there's pretty clearly more in play.
For one thing, back-seat driving is not necessarily limited to safety related issues. For example, I might be driving and see a sign saying my exit is 2 miles away. So I get in the right lane, and otherwise continue driving. Next I see a sign which says the turn-off is 1/2 mile away. I put on my turn signal. Finally there is a sign that the exit is a quarter mile away. At this point, my mother or whoever looks up, notices the sign, and says "Here's our exit!" At that point, I give the same speech I've given many times before: "I know how to read English; I am well aware of this; it's annoying and distracting when you point out obvious things; and if for some reason we miss our exit, it's not a big deal. If you see something which is truly a matter of life and death, feel free to speak up, but otherwise I would appreciate it if you would just let me drive."
Anyway, FWIW I am a much more cautious driver than my ex-wife. For example, I always leave plenty of room between me and the car ahead of me, to the point where people behind me sometimes honk, urging me to close the gap. And I never go more than a few miles an hour over the speed limit. And yet she still would regularly back-seat drive. By contrast, I hardly ever back-seat drove.
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I thought this was mainly because women have a poorer sense of 3d space and have a slower reaction time on average compared to men. To a woman, a man who thinks he's driving "normally" seems like he's tailgating recklessly and about to bash into the car in front of him at any second.
That alone would make women more inclined to pipe up.
I agree that might be a factor, but as I have pointed out in other posts backseat driving is not limited to to (perceived) safety issues. Backseat drivers often give advice as to routes, directions, etc. which are kind of obviously unhelpful, distracting, and annoying. Like if I am in the right lane; I am signalling to get off at the next exit, and the backseat-driver then says "Here's our exit coming up!"
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I think it's probably driven by trait neuroticism.
My husband usually insists on driving, and offers a continual commentary on his perceptions of the other drivers and their lack of virtue. When I drive, he does offer a medium amount of commentary on both my driving and that of the other cars on the highway, though less than when he himself is driving. I am in general a much chiller driver, though he will back seat drive about opportunities to pass on a one lane road, to save five minutes over the course of an hour's drive, which is a matter of preference, but I am annoyed that he accepts my preference less than I do his. Also, he makes me navigate to new out of the way places he has found, then criticizes my navigation instructions, but won't switch positions. This has become much better now the we have a screen in the car that displays the map.
This has not been my experience.
FWIW my ex father-in-law was this kind of backseat driver. So if we were waiting at a toll plaza and he saw a lane which appeared to be moving faster, he would urge me to switch to the faster lane. Perhaps this is a more masculine style of backseat driving. (As a side note, I live in the Northeastern US and therefore I am a reasonably impatient driver. Nevertheless, I find that regular jumping from lane to lane, in an effort to find the fastest lane, is usually more trouble than it's worth. Unless I see some kind of obstruction up ahead, I typically wait until 15 or 20 cars in the next lane have passed me before switching.)
Ahh, the monologue. My ex-wife similarly provides running commentary while she drives. Annoying to be sure, but not in the same league as commentary from a passenger while I am driving.
What's your reasoning for this?
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A female passenger who criticizes her male driver is being Stunning and Brave in performing the Emotional Labor of speaking up and looking out for herself and any other passengers. A male passenger who criticizes his female driver is toxic, controlling, misogynistic, potentially abusive.
The probability of being a backseat driver can be decomposed into the probability of being a passenger and the probability of being a backseat driver given being a passenger. That is, P(Backseat Driver) = P(Passenger) * P(Backseat Driver | Passenger).
Especially for dating/relationship situations: for women, the probability of being a passenger is substantially higher given that they generally prefer being a Passenger Princess and eschewing the agency and responsibility of being the driver. Men have the burden of performance and need to assume the agency and responsibility of driving.
The probability of being a backseat driver given passenger is also higher for women, since anything that might infringe on the Princess’s safety, comfort, or enjoyment should rightfully be communicated to the chauffeur of a husband/boyfriend. Ugh, the stupid husband/boyfriend should have Just Got It in the first place. Too fast and he’s making her feel unsafe or comfortable, too slow and he’s a wuss wasting her time while she's BORED in the car. A male passenger, as a member of the expendable gender, who expresses that he feels unsafe or uncomfortable risks looking weak and triggering the ick in a girlfriend/wife.
Personally, I’ve rarely gotten backseat driven by men or women. I can’t recall a single time, actually. However, I might be organically pre-empting back-seat driving as a side effect by code-switching my driving depending on the passenger. Tiers in order of increasing safetyism and decreasing assertiveness*:
Base case of myself. Speed limits are just a suggestion, a social construct, whatever I feel like identifying them as. I’ll look to pass any slower drivers in front of me and fill any empty space in front of me so no other drivers will cut me off. Nothing extreme, though—I’ll generally stick to within 35% of the posted speed limit when at high speeds and will (at least half-heartedly) try not to induce road rage in others. If I see a more assertive driver on the road, I’ll happily let them take the lead as a guinea pig for potential speed traps. No accidents or even tickets on my driving history.
Male friends or coworkers. With the added responsibility of transporting someone else, I’ll naturally be a bit more cautious.
Female acquaintances (that is, dates). I’ll drive more cautiously than the base case and the second bullet as to not scare the hoes. Not too cautiously, lest they get the ick from thinking I drive like a wuss. These girls I haven’t each driven around much previously though, because it’s a first/second date—and/or because even if we’ve known each other a while, I almost always send girls taxis/rideshares or one of us takes one (for better convenience/efficiency, and so I don’t risk having to booze cruise at some point). However, I can certainly imagine girlfriends/wives finding more things to complain about as they get driven around more by their boyfriends/husbands.
Similarly-aged male family members, or older ones who I know drive quite assertively themselves.
Women and children family members, materially younger male ones (or older ones who don’t fit bullet 4). I’ll generally try not to exceed 15% of the posted speed limit when at high speeds. Minimal passing of other cars and minimal filling of empty space in front.
As a passenger, though, from what I’ve seen male drivers tend to receive more direct feedback than female drivers from passengers of both genders. Male passengers tend to say stuff like “light is green,” “safe to merge on this side,” “speed limit just increased.” The feedback from female passengers to male drivers tends to be more biting and histrionic in nature, especially when it comes from a girlfriend/wife of the male driver.
* I drive assertively. You drive aggressively. He drives recklessly.
FWIW a lot of the backseat driving I receive is not related to safety issues. For example, I might be driving and see a sign saying my exit is 2 miles away. So I get in the right lane, and otherwise continue driving. Next I see a sign which says the turn-off is 1/2 mile away. I put on my turn signal. Finally there is a sign that the exit is a quarter mile away. At this point, my mother or whoever looks up, notices the sign, and says "Here's our exit!" At that point, I give the same speech I've given many times before: "I know how to read English; I am well aware of this; it's annoying and distracting when you point out obvious things; and if for some reason we miss our exit, it's not a big deal. If you see something which is truly a matter of life and death, feel free to speak up, but otherwise I would appreciate it if you would just let me drive."
I would guess that this is a factor in your experiences. When people are out on dates and it's not with a long-term partner, they generally make an effort to be on better behavior. People (male and female) will say rude things to their spouses which they would never say if they were out on a first or second date. Do you happen to be married?
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My wife is a very persistent backseat driver, despite not actually knowing how to drive. She also does that thing where she gets scared that I won't break in time. In her defence, she does realise that it's annoying and is trying to stop.
This article has 80% of women admitting to it, versus 62% of men. Both numbers seem a little too high to me, but they do show the gender difference.
My guess would be the gender gap is a manifestation of anxiety or neuroticism. If being a passenger feels more dangerous to women, then them wanting to reduce risk by controlling the situation themselves would make sense. Although as you say, I can't imagine many women wanting to do more of the driving. Maybe sitting as a passenger and giving instructions feels safer than simply driving oneself?
I dunno, but I find there's legitimate advantages to having a reliable copilot, even if that person doesn't themselves drives. Someone to read the GPS when I get on the highway and tell me what the exit number I need to take is. Or someone who checks their side on an unprotected turn to tell you if it's clear (I will check anyway right before turning, but having to divert my gaze between two sides when alone means I can miss some open gaps). But it's important to stress the "reliable" part. If I just hear panicked noises with no obvious reason, it's not helping; it's more dangerous.
I think I should have a conversation with my wife about the importance of clear, brief communication in emergencies. Like, she should start immediately with the direction she wants me to look at, then after what I should pay attention to. Like "Right! Car!" is more likely to save us than "iiiiiiiih" and bracing for impact.
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Yeah, for some reason when they "brace for impact" it's kind of annoying.
Well I have observed that in lots of different domains, women don't like taking responsibility for things. They hate that uncomfortable feeling that comes when you make a decision and things don't work out. Backseat-driving potentially offers the best of both worlds. Authority without responsibility. You get to have control over the situation but if things don't work out, there's someone else to take the blame.
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I drive 99% of the time and my wife has never offered commentary on my driving. On other people's driving, on the scenery, on a nearby bird, yes.
My parents have driving as a team sport. My mom will say "you've got green" if the light has been green for a moment and my stepdad hasn't hit the gas yet (probably because he was looking a bird), but it's a neutral tone and not a "you're doing it wrong" tone. Same for the "car coming" comments when they come to a stop sign and she looks to the right while he looks to the left. The latter is especially helpful at something like a T intersection when the sightlines are blocked and someone could come zooming along with very little advance warning.
I drive 99% of the time, and my wife very very occasionally says things. She always apologizes about it, but somehow every. single. time. it is valid and useful information. For example, maybe I'm looking back to initiate a lane change, and something suddenly happens in front of us and to the other side.
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I hate this for many reasons. First, just relax and sit back instead of blocking my view with your ugly head. Second, you do not know what I want to do, if I want to move slowly to let some pedestrian pass or start quickly to move before he reaches the crossing etc. Also, I am the one driving - your unhelpful and inconsistent advice is worth shit when of course sometimes you sleep or play with your cell phone etc.
I deliberately also do not do it when my wife is driving even if she sometimes asks for advice for exactly the same reason. She is the one 100% concentrated on driving. I cannot evaluate the situation in a second she gives me when she asks. I'd rather nap or think about Roman Empire or something instead of being useless backseat driver. We are not in a race where you need a navigator. If you cannot process the information, then slow down. If you are too tired to do even basics such as turning left, then let's switch and let me drive.
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This is very sweet. I hope we are like this when we get old.
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My wife drives 99% of the time, so I don't have much experience with her being a backseat driver. I can't say I never backseat, but I certainly backseat less that my MIL, who mainly doesn't like driving at speed.
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It’s because women talk much more than men. Men are perfectly happy being silent if there’s nothing to say, women want to have a conversation.
Even though I make an effort not to say anything, sometimes I will move my foot to where the brake would be if I were driving and push down with my foot, every time my husband isn't coming to a stop at the same deceleration I would have employed. My husband talks more than myself, and my 'backseat driving' is often more in the form of gestures, flinches, and gasps.
There is an element where I do think my husband is a more dangerous driver but he has said he likes driving and if I tried to become the primary driver it would be insulting.
He's gotten into four accidents that have required body work since we've been together, each one he has been found not at fault, each one I was not in the car with him. My record is 0 accidents. He drives about twice as many miles as I do. He readily admitted that he was spared a fifth accident because a rental company got him a Tesla and it did some nifty accident avoidance on him when he was about to crash someone in the highway.
This is a specific instance, but the data also seems to indicate men are more aggressive drivers. Perhaps you all deserve some backseat driving?
I freely admit that in this, and many, specific cases, poor male driving is the cause of women backseat driving, but also the ‘women be talking’ stereotype totally drives much backseat driving which is entirely unrelated to such things.
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My mother got a kitten that recently has gotten sick. I spent few days with her to keep company (we live close by) but maaan...... I know her greatest trick is to "talk loudly that ensures everyone is listening" when she tries to be passive-aggresive or spiteful, but to witness this technique being used non-stop to cope with stress of a sick animal for 4 hours straight was also close to torture. (She was not bad-mouthing anyone, just speaking aloud whatever was in her head at the time)
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Caveat: Generalizing
As pointed out men tend to drive more but also I would say it's just an extensions of women's general tenancy to nag and complain.
Proverbs 21:19 "Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife."
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The part that annoys me is not so much the backseat driving, it's the lack of information in panicked yells, that could lead to worse reaction than just ignoring her. And of course, whenever an interaction happens that I would like a second opinion on, like "honey, was I in the wrong there?" she was not paying attention.
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Years ago I read an article breathlessly discussing how female Uber drivers make less money than male even when controlling for hours worked. Muh wage gap, institutional sexism etc.
What they didn't control for was the fact that female Uber drivers drive slower than male (because men have a vastly higher risk tolerance), resulting in fewer accidents but also fewer fares per hour.
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Couldn't part of this just be that men are riskier and more aggressive drivers? Women experience more minor fender benders but men get into major crashes way more. The fatal crash rate for men is almost twice as high as women apparently.
I recall a factoid that young men have a higher crash rate when they have male passengers, but a lower crash rate when they have female passengers in the car. A variety of explanations were offered.
When I'm driving with the boys, there's this little part of my monkey brain whispering "this is a competition. The faster you go, the braver you are and the more they'll respect you." The idea of being "the slow driver" in the group is mortifying. With women or family in the car, the little monkey remains quiet and a greater sense of responsibility for my passengers takes hold.
That's why James May is the best. He has transcended this irrational fear.
I can only aspire to reach the zen of Captain Slow.
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I've always suspected that a material portion of the fatalities are suicides.
True, but sufficiently advanced risk-taking is indistinguishable from suicide.
This is most apparent in war zones; as the designated war gender, men are a bit more instinctively accepting of this.
Interesting, I'd never encountered it written out so well, but this is a concept I ran into (somewhat) recently. I had a friend who committed suicide, which caught every one of his friends and family by surprise. Cliche about how he was always the most lively person in any setting where he was, and how much better he was at socializing and bringing people together than anyone else applies in full here. One of the many things he was known for, though, was being an incredibly reckless (and yet somehow also wreck-less) driver. Almost everyone I met who had been driven by him once (including myself) sweared off ever being driven by him again, for fear of death, and he regularly drove his moped for hours through snowy/rainy/stormy weather day or night, ostensibly just to visit us or other friends. After the fact, some of us in his friend group started wondering if his driving behavior was a form of passive suicide that he was seeking out. He never left a note or confided in anyone who has spoken out (closest we've got is multiple of his ex-girlfriends noting how different and dead he appeared in private after the many social events he would both organize and improve through his presence, but no one ever considered this notable until after the suicide), so we'll never know (and even he might not have been privy to his motivations at the time).
Also interestingly enough, despite owning both firearms and vehicles, his way of going involved engineering a contraption to suffocate himself with helium, something which seemed to have taken some planning and execution over some hours, if not days, for procurement. I imagine there are likely many other people who had similar mindsets who made snap decisions during driving that appeared as accidents rather than suicide.
I can't vouch for it, but the argument I heard was this:
When there is a well-publicized suicide, suicide rates go up for a while.
Additionally, when there is a well-publicized suicide, single vehicle car crashes also go up for a while.
The inference is that a lot of these single vehicle car crashes are suicides / suicide attempts, perhaps because the individual involved wants to conceal the fact that it is a suicide (for life insurance purposes, for social purposes, etc.)
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One time I legitimately saved the lives of my whole family on a long trip.
We were on a highway in the mountains of Oregon, there was a "Lane Ends" sign my husband didn't notice. I saw our lane was ending and there was another car in the lane we needed to get to. I held in my, "look!" until what I thought was the last second. But it really did seem like my husband wasn't paying attention and was either going to drive us off a cliff or hit the other car.
So I spoke up, my husband braked enough that the other car got ahead, we moved behind them, and we survived. My husband confirmed that he hadn't noticed what was going on, vindicating my speaking out. We took it as a signal to stop for a rest and swap drivers.
For this one single useful time I actually possibly saved my children's lives, there have been about 100 other times where he was perfectly in control of the situation and all I did was annoy him, cause him to brake unnecessarily, etc.
I realize I'm not really good at this. A 1% effectiveness rate is very dismal. But! Considering the costs of not speaking up the one time when you really could have prevented an accident, it's better to be oversensitive than under-sensitive here.
I think men are more likely to get into deadly accidents while women are more likely to get into fender benders? That might tip the scales somewhat, a man's fight or flight instinct doesn't go into overdrive when their woman looks like she's about to side swipe that parked car at the grocery. A woman's instinct kicks in when all parties are driving 75mph.
Unless yelling look caused an accident.
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True so long as your husband doesn't start ignoring you entirely due to the oversensitivity.
I actually made it clear to my ex-wife that I don't object to her back-seat driving if it clearly seems like a matter of life and death.
That being said, I'm pretty skeptical of stories about the one time that back-seat driving actually saved someone's life. The reason is that as a general rule on internet discussion boards, whenever you post a generalization, especially one that is negative and about women, pretty much 100% of the time someone shows up with an unverifiable story which contradicts or undermines the generalization. If I say something like "for the most part, women don't like killing and disposing of pests around the house," it's pretty much guaranteed someone will show up and say something like "I'm a woman and I am constantly killing rats while my husband stands cowering on top of a table." I can believe that out of hundreds of millions of couples, there are a few like that, I just find it to be too much of a coincidence that these people are posting on some obscure message board.
I've posted here often enough and have been honest and genuine. Sometimes the weird niche forum really does attract the upper class investor, two doctors, and other crazy weirdos like the weird gal who talks too much about parenthood and has been on more than the average number of long road trips and all that comes from that. I posed on here a few months ago that I would have loved to be a truck driver, so an anecdote about a road tip is pretty on brand for me.
I also verified just now that my husband remembers it the same as I do, that he does also think I saved our lives that one time which is why he's trying to be patient for all the other times.
I can't show absolute proof though so whatever. For what it's worth, I don't think my comment "contradicts the generalization." I openly admit that I have interrupted my husband on many more occasions where it wasn't so helpful.
It doesn't help that you misquoted me in such a way as to exaggerate my statement. That makes me think you are trying to push an agenda, either consciously or subconsciously.
That being said, it's a bit of a moot point. There is no doubt that there have been occasions when backseat-driving has produced a positive result. I doubt that you have actually experienced such a situation, but I will concede that someone else out there probably has.
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True, and I really do try to hold in my gasps and dismay. But there is some level where I can't help myself, it's an instinctual reaction to seeing things coming at you 60+ MPH. I wonder if there's some correlation between women being bad at throwing/catching fast balls and backseat driving.
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Accidental double post
Thanks, I deleted the other one.
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My guess would be that this is responsible for a lot of it, as an artifact of the likely reality (citation needed) that when a man and a woman are traveling together in a car with one of them driving, the majority of the time and distance involve the man driving and, as such, the woman is the one more often in the position to back/side-seat drive. The reason for this phenomena are likely many, including that men are more incentivized to take the lead and responsibility, especially in romantic relationships and that men are more likely to be the richer one and therefore more likely to be the car owner in the case that they're romantic partners. I'd also guess that men are more likely than women not to consider driving to be a burden.
There's also the fact that men tend to have higher risk tolerance, and so driving behavior that he considers reasonable could be considered dangerous by her more often than the other way around.
If there's any particular real difference in behavior, I'd guess that it's because women are incentivized by society to direct men to solve their problems in a way that men aren't incentivized to direct women - or other men - to solve theirs. But I don't know how much is left over to explain after my first 2 paragraphs above.
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Male backseat driver in recovery checking in. My wife prefers to drive, I don't, and I used to give advice when I felt she was doing something clearly wrong ("honey, the light is green and the car in front of you pulled away thirty seconds ago while you were looking out the side window"). This inevitably led to resentment on her side and tension on mine as I focused on what she was doing wrong.
Eventually I decided to stop doing this and things are much more enjoyable. Operating the car is her problem, not mine, and I limit my driving commentary to reminding her when she's left the turn signal on for two miles on the interstate.
My sister is definitely a backseat driver too, but in a much worse way. I don't start braking immediately if cars in front are braking since I leave ample follow distance for exactly such cases, but this greatly stresses her out: "they're braking! They're braking!"
Ditto. My bugaboo is tailgating.
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It used to be a significant source of tension in my marriage: if I was driving with my wife, she would often criticise my performance. She would have said she was giving helpful advice: the fact that I took it as criticism was undoubtedly the reason her “backseat driving” was the cause of more fights between us than just about anything else.
In the end I resolved it by recognizing that I don’t really like driving, while my wife enjoys it. So I just let her drive when we’re together and we get along fine. Though I am thoroughly convinced that I’m a better driver than her, I am happy to let her do the driving if it means that I can rest and we stop sniping at each other.
As far as the gender question goes, it reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis:
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Backseat driving happens when someone is in the backseat, and part of patriarchy is I guess men have to take the first shift at the wheel? Seems like a bum deal IMO.
My local cluster has the rule: All backseating is allowed and encouraged, no matter how stupid. If you see something, say something; whoevers driving needs to not be a jumpy bitch about it and accept guidance with buddha like composure.
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