Do gals not want to save gas?

[SVOboy]

Perhaps you live in an area dominated by living stereotypes, because my personal experience suggests that sweeping comments about any group of people are almost always wrong.

[GasSavers_brick]

There are several women at CleanMPG who have contributed some really fantastic content and fuel economy numbers. My girlfriend has also proven to be very capable, and has changed her driving style significantly since I first met her. The first time she ever drove me anywhere we got busted for 85 in a 65, and had been doing triple digits only a mile or so before. The whole time I was like "WTF have I gotten myself into?" It took two more tickets for her to get the hint, and she started to slow down a little. But she was still doing 75-80. Not long thereafter I caught the FE bug and changed my own habits, (I had been a 70-75 highway driver with what I now consider to be a fairly heavy foot.) She has sorta picked up on what I do and employs the basic stuff very effectively. The trick was to get her to try it and see the numbers for herself for the first time. Since then she's topped 120% of EPA highway at times, although she still struggles a bit in town. I expect her next car purchase to be driven heavily by fuel economy, as she drives more than just about anyone I know.

So the answer is yes, there are gals who want to save gas. I think the real issue here is that gearheadedness tends to be a predominantly male trait, and that's a significant factor in driving many of us to make it into a genuine hobby.

Think about the number of men running up our tail pipes, passing aggressively just because they can, and generally driving like angry monkeys. I would argue that, if anything, women have less baggage ("Yeah, it's got a Hemi!") that would prevent them from driving throughfully rather than driving to be "top dog."

[GasSavers_Jack]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

I would hate to see an earnest question turn into a chauvinism competition. Did we forget that men are, by far, the more dangerous drivers?

From experience I would say that for drivers under about 25 males are far more dangerous driving. After about 25 I think that the stupidity evens out.

Now this is just an observation but it seems that female drivers do more distracting things like talking on the phone, checking and putting on make up and those kind of things.

But if you google it you get:

http://ink.news.com.au/mercury/mathg...5/950912a1.htm

MALE drivers cause twice as many
accidents as female drivers, a
survey has found.

http://www.insurance.com/Article.asp...omen/artid/259

Figures compiled by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) show that more men than women die each year in motor vehicle crashes

so who know.....

[cfg83]

Hello -

My wife won't drive stick (bum left knee) but she has "seen the light" over the years and now drives a stock Honda Civic Coupe EX. From what I can tell, even with an auto, she can get equal or better highway MPG with her 1.5L Honda engine than I can with my evolving 1.9L Saturn. She has always driven conservatively, so she can get as good MPG as she wants to. I think I am getting better total MPG, but that is probably because of my huge percentage of freeway driving.

I love her for many reasons, not to mention that she is *very* tolerant of my MPG gimmicks .

And yes, MPG is not a big female concern.

CarloSW2

[Peakster]

Originally Posted by zpiloto

Are there any gals registered here as GS?

Perhaps women feel reluctant to joining an organization that already has a domineering male atmospheric arena. I was the only guy in my ceramics class 2 semesters ago and I preferred skipping the class and doing my clay work in the evening just because I felt so out-numbered.

If any females are reading this, don't be afraid to join! I'll keep the other guys in line .

[SVOboy]

http://www.smartmotorist.com/tai/tai.htm

here's a survey that would seem to support the notion of female tailgaters; perhaps my perception of them being the dominant offenders is heightened by the overwhelming proportion of suvs in the local traffic mix.

it seems odd that the guys cause so many more accidents but that seems to be the case.

anyway, back to the original point and my comment that got 'boy's ire, i just don't see women in general engaging in FE enhancing behavior, be it driving for FE, maintaining for FE ie. keeping air in the tires, choosing an FE vehicle, or even thinking about FE at all. In fairness, most men don't either but of that small slice of people that acknowledge FE as something worthwhile it does seem to be almost all guys.

Until you conduct a realiable survey of all women, don't make bigoted generalizations.

This is what the UK says:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...030414-03.hcsp

And here is something saying most small car drivers are women: http://magpie.lboro.ac.uk/dspace/bit...9/1/PUB191.pdf

[Peakster]

Sorry. I just had my Women Studies course at 9:30am and the class watched a film about women running for parliement. Granted it was about the 1997 election in Canada (already a decade old) but a commenter in the film suggested that the reason why only 21% of parliement members are female is because of the stigma that it is still a mainly male dominated atmospheric arena.

I highly encourage females to join this organization. However I can empathize that some women may be intimidated of being the 'first one' to do it.

[SVOboy]

Sorry, I wasn't referring to you, I misclicked the quote thingy. I agree with you, though.

[GasSavers_James]

My wife is not as into the FE thing as I am, but she digs it. i dont think we will see her logging into gassavers any time soon. We have totally different FE approaches. She has no problem bumbling along at 30 MPH in neutral over the top of a hill on a 50 MPH road, with someone behind her. She loves the coasting thing so much, it even makes me uneasy coasting so slow for such a long time. She goes really slow unless the road is really big and then she goes a little faster. Part of this is that she hadnt owned a car for 10 years previously.
sometimes women scare me with their manouvers, and when they are surprised when the wheels slip on ice/gravel etc, not understanding the difference between a rear wheel drive or front wheel drive, etc. But I have seen some really agressive males go too fast and flip over too. Guys seem to have a monopoly on the anger/driving thing. Most women just expect the car to work in all situations safely, and i guess it is up to us guys to put in new brake pads, inflate the tires etc.
-James

[Silveredwings]

It's ALWAYS bad to generalize!!