About a week back, maybe ten days,a report came out from England (I am
pretty sure England but could have beeen USA or Canada???), that
compared what the  article termed "the natural abilities" of woman
drivers versus male drivers. I never saw the results and dont know
what paper it appeared in, but would be very interested to find out
where I can see it on the net. I am not even sure what the results
were as I only heard  talkback radio talking about it as "coming up in
next half hour"  which I could not wait for. They just referred to
very interesting observations froma newspaper story  based on 120,000
driver's licence tests. Being male I of course suspect the study
arrives at conclusion we males all share in our minds but am keeping
an open mind and would be happy to see article prove me dead wrong.

I read a news article a couple weeks back, which was based upon 40
volunteers, and measured finger lengths to determine prenatal hormone
levels, and establish spatial cognition from that.

First article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4202199.stm

This sparked many counter-articles, and eventually, an interview with
Robin Cummins, who is the chief driving examiner of the UK, who pulled
some interesting statistics concerning driving tests:

"Women need as much as 14 hours more tuition on average to pass their
driving test and have a test pass rate of just 40%, six per cent
behind men's at 46%.

While women take an average of 2.12 tests to pass, men need 1.87. ?I?m
not saying anything that isn?t in the figures,? says Cummins. ?Of
course there are plenty of women who are excellent drivers and plenty
of men who are terrible, but overall it does seem to be that men can
pick up the basic skills more quickly. With young men there seems to
be more natural ability. Some females ? though not all ? take a lot
more teaching.?

For both sexes the pass rate is highest for 17-year-olds (56% for
women and 60% for men) and lowest for those 50 and over (29% for both
men and women). Reversing is the most common problem for women failing
the test."

Subsequent articles:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1482133,00.html
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=169522005

It's an interesting debate, and I'm sure it's not the last of the
articles which will come out.

Thank you for your question.

skermit-ga