Fiona McCade: Park the stereotypes, women are best drivers

Biology and chemistry have long conspired to both attract and divide men and women, so we’ve arrived at some generally accepted ideas about how brain function differs between the sexes. Allegedly, men think mainly with their logical, left-lobes; see the broader picture; do one thing at a time and have excellent spatial awareness. Women are supposedly intuitive, right-brain dominant, good at detail, can multi-task, but haven’t a clue where they’re going. Those are the stereotypes, but suck on this, stereotypes, because women are better at parking cars than men.

Yesss! I’ve been waiting for this Great Truth to be made official for the best part of 30 years. I passed my driving test very early and I’ve been driving most of my life, but I can honestly say, I’ve never been tempted to attach a “You have parked like a LUNATIC” sticker (yes, I own some) to the windscreen of a fellow female.

Researchers for NCP car parks analysed the parking prowess of several thousand drivers over a month and the findings were as follows: women take an average of five seconds longer to execute the parking manoeuvre than men do, but they are quicker to find a satisfactory space, more likely to reverse into it, and much more accurate in their positioning of the vehicle.

Men, on the other hand, zoom around so fast, they miss many free bays and opportunities to park (so, you could say they take longer to park overall), they tend to enter the bay facing forwards, take just 16 seconds to do it and rarely adjust their positioning from wherever they first land. So, sisters, when you get back to your car with a load of shopping and someone’s swerved in next to you at an angle and left you with about an inch of space to squeeze into your seat, chances are that someone has a Y-chromosome.

I’m not wantonly bashing the boys here (don’t blame me, blame NCP), but if I seem a tad defensive, it’s because I’m sick and tired of hearing the same old prejudiced clichés about women drivers and I’m grateful for some ammunition to counteract the calumny.

Yes, women are often slower drivers than men – and yes, that can annoy me, too – but I reckon that those extra five seconds spent getting the parking position just perfect is a small price to pay for a superior standard of motoring.

In fact, I’m so passionate about proper parking, I’ve evolved my own, definitive Good Parking Code, and I’d like to share it with the world:

• Always choose a bay that’s protected on as many sides as possible. Be prepared to drive for longer to find one, as it will offer greater protection against lunatics.

• If you adjust your position a few times while men roll their eyes, ignore them. A good trajectory is a thing of beauty and gives you more options for when you leave.

• Never park near the trolleys.

• Fitting into the tightest space possible is not a personal triumph over the laws of physics; it is a right pain, especially if you have kids and shopping on board.

• Slewing across two spaces is an affront to civilisation.

• Reverse parking and parallel parking are the only true forms of parking. Going in nose first is no more a manoeuvre than opening a can of beans is cordon bleu cookery. A chimp could do it, and judging by what you see in an average multi-storey, they frequently do.

Imagine if everyone parked politely and precisely. The world would become a demi-paradise, and scraped doors would be things from a nightmarish past.

Ah well, I can dream. For now, I’ll settle for being the best car driver in my family – my husband has only ever parked Royal Navy battleships.