It's official: women are better at parking

Originally from The Daily Telegraph, this was published in today's The Times.

It is a cliche almost as old as the motor car itself, and the subject of many a sexist joke, but the idea that women cannot park is simply untrue, according to UK researchers.

Covert surveillance of car parks across Britain has shown that though women may take longer to park, they are more likely to leave their vehicles in the middle of the bay.

The study is one of the most comprehensive conducted on gender driving differences, and took into account seven key components.

Women were found to be better at finding spaces, more accurate in lining vehicles up before starting each manoeuvre, and more likely to adopt instructors' preferred method of reversing into bays.

Men were shown to be more skilled at driving forwards into spaces and more confident overall, with fewer opting to reposition their car once in a bay.

But once all the elements were taken into account, women were ranked first with a total score of 13.4 out of 20, compared with 12.3 points achieved by men.

Neil Beeson, a professional driving instructor who devised the experiment, described the results as "surprising".

"In my experience, men have always been the best learners and usually performed better in lessons," he said. "However, it's possible that women have retained the information better. It shows that we men need to give our partners more respect when it comes to parking. The facts don't lie."

But James May, the Top Gear presenter, challenged the criteria of the study, saying that parking in the centre of a bay was not always the best policy, especially if a neighbouring car was parked too close to the dividing lines.

"I don't care what gender the person is next to me, I just don't want them to bang their door on my Porsche."