By Jake Lingeman, Crain News Service
DETROIT (Sept. 12, 2013) — Men are more aggressive behind the wheel — no surprise there — but women are the ones who let the curse words fly, according to a study by Insurance.com.
The site surveyed 1,000 adults, asking them about rude driving behavior.
Men are more likely to honk at a slow driver—because they deserve it, right?—but women are more likely to swear in front of the kids while driving. Women also flip the bird more than men do, and they brake check drivers following too closely more often. Men, on the other hand, speed up when other drivers are trying to pass.
When a four-way stop comes up, women go when it isn't their turn 18 percent of the time, while men hurry through 20 percent of the time. Men and women drive to the front of a merge line and cut in equally and swear in front of elderly in-laws about the same amount.
A few of the bigger discrepancies include turning on the brights at an oncoming car on purpose: Men do it twice as much. Keying another car? Men also do that twice as much as the fairer sex. As for dinging someone's car and driving away, men and women do it equally.
According to psychology professor Leon James, a specialist in this area, people feel less inhibited when driving because of the anonymity.
"It's likely that most women aren't swearing in front of their children at home or that anyone is flipping off an annoying person in the grocery store," Mr. James said.
As for regrets, we have a few... Only one quarter of people who admit to bad behavior while driving said they don't regret any of their past deeds, while the rest of us have at least some form of remorse.
People are most sorry for swearing in front of the kids, and they have the least remorse for brake checking. About half of us regret going at a stop sign when it wasn't our turn.
Check out the rest of the survey at Insurance.com. http://www.insurance.com/
This report appeared on the website of Autoweek magazine, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.