Do gals not want to save gas?
 

I was looking at the Frappr and it was all guy and no gals. Are there any gals registered here as GS? No I'm not stalking.:p

Jenny!

I don't know, I feel a deep gender bias in the room *eerienoises*

I've wondered about the paucity of femaleness too. I don't know the answer, but here's some more evidence:

• There is exactly one (1) woman who posts occasionally on the EV discussion list.
• I think CleanMPG has a few more females registered, but only one regular participant that I'm aware of.

I think they do but may be more inclined to wait for a turnkey solution as opposed to doing what many regulars here do. :confused:

Ah! The proverbial "turnkey solution"! MPG and "turnkey" don't get along (barring kryptonite!) :D

Yeah, my wife refuses to drive a stick and won't slow down on the highway to save gas (not that that she speeds or anything). Those are two big things that could save gas. Generally she would rather have comfort and convenience than conservation and that is seen around the house too. It seems like we cancel each other out; I get 50 + mpg with my car, she gets 22-23 with her 98 taurus 24v v6. I try to conserve power and fuel around the house and she burns that much more:rolleyes: . At least she will feed the wood stove when I'm at work to save some fuel in the winter :thumbup:
I still love her :D

We've talked about the next car we should get her. Of course no stick shifts always comes up. The Prius might be a good choice for her. That would be the best mpg auto trans car I know of.

I think it comes down to the absence of women wrenching in general. Let's face it - Honda-Tech is a sausage fest too.

My wife OCCASIONALLY tries to employ some FE conscious driving techniques she picked up from me. At least she comes to me excited when she gets over 400 miles per tank.

Let see.... My wife drives a 2005 Honda Pilot. Still jackrabbit starts off at green lights. Still has here foot on the gas until the last second before she needs to brake for turns or lights. Has no problem letting the car idle with the defroster running on max instead of scraping. But when it comes to taking the kids somewhere or having to go get something she becomes VERY fuel conscious and tells me to go because I get better gas mileage. But as stated before I still lover her too.

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?

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.

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."

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:

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

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

https://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.....

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

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 :D .

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

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

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

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.

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

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

It's ALWAYS bad to generalize!! :D

Generally, it's always bad to generalize...generally speaking that is. ;)

My personal experience on this subject:

My wife thinks I'm goofy for the things I do to my car, but doesn't care as long as I don't spend hardly anything doing it. She tried once to figure out the FE of her car but gave up after one tank. Her 2000 Mazda Protege LX gets about 26 MPG the way she drives it and she's ok with that. She gets a little annoyed when I remind her that my car gets double the mileage hers does. :cool:

My wife cooks, cleans, cuddles, keeps the gaslog for me and has started eoc'ing. Its been a long haul though. It only took 6 years to teach how to drive a stick.

And yes I love her, I don't think another woman like exist.

I might as well add my personal bit to this:

My first girlfriend was so taken with my addiction to FE that she made her parents get an HCHII when she started driving, even though her family almost exclusively drives <20mpg vehicles (2006 viper, H2, bmw 750lxi [or whatever the most expensive kind is]).