But Jessica, didn't you know that ovaries make it impossible for you to see straight when you get within 10 feet of a car??

Seriously, though, that commercial doesn't even make sense. "When a woman's at the wheel, Polyglas means more than mileage." What does that even MEAN? That it grips the road specially to prevent her from driving of a cliff because her vagina makes her not able to control the steering wheel?

My parents always told me that the worst drivers were old men with hats. Who knew?
Hattism strikes again.

Ha!--That's strikingly like (although the reverse of) something that happened to my boyfriend and me recently. A few months ago I was traveling for work and missed the last connecting flight home--but, rather than stay in the Atlanta airport overnight, I was able to get a flight to an airport two hours away from my home. Fortunately, I had loaned my car to my boyfriend while I was out of town, so he was able to drive to the far-away airport and get me. My wonderful boyfriend, who doesn't drive much, drove two hours, in the pouring rain, at 2:00 AM, to a place he'd never been before, to pick me up at the airport--I imagine he felt a lot like the woman in that ad does while he was driving there. When he picked me up, I jumped in the driver's seat and he, with a sigh of relief, moved into the passenger seat. Did I mention I have a wonderful, wonderful boyfriend?

Wow. Tires so superior in make that even a woman can arrive at her destination safely! Hmm.. that must be why men are more expensive to insure - all that data the insurance companies have on their superior driving skills.

I'm left scratching my head a bit about what the tires have to do with making the woman driver safer. Is it that they keep their tread longer, and thus reduce skidding should she have to slam on the brakes? And wouldn't that make everyone safer, not just women drivers?

Uh, she needs glasses.

cobblestonesbeach, it's true! Yesterday there was an old man with a hat in front of me on the road and he was stopping in the middle of the intersection and then failing to move even when the light changed...

aaaah. those were the days...

Seriously, I drive an average 80.000 kilometers per year (dunno how many miles that are) and have some "road experience".
The overly cautios driving style of some women drives me up a wall, but I prefere them to the brainless wanker who is glued to my trunk at 190 km/h and flashing his goddam lights at me and flipping me the bird in his midlife-crisis-red SUV

LOL, I thought it was only a running joke in my family about old men wearing hats!

They are the worst, it's true!

That video cracked me up. "But, when a WOMAN drives!! Da dun dun!"

I also love how it points out that this safety measure is for the car owner's wife. I can't wait till I get married and am allowed a driver's license and access to a car. It sure sucks being an independent single woman with no spousal vehicle to use.

Ha, ha -- what spirina said. That penis is like a third hand, helping to steady the wheel.

Also, maybe if she were so concerned, drive a car with a top?

Unrelated, but everytime I sidn into TypeKey I tell them to keep me signed in for two weeks, and they kick me off. I have to re-sign in for each comment. : (

I think the most disgusting part about this stupid advertisement is the comments on it on the YouTube page.

Ah, Goodyear. The paragon of feminism that underpaid Lily Ledbetter for 30 years because she doesn't have a penis.

Did this commercial really come out recently? What planet are they on?

This video cracked me up. It's so ridiculous.

The best defensive driving tip my parents taught me was to watch out for any vehicle sporting a Jesus fish next to a "W" bumper sticker. (Unfortunately, that describes the majority of cars on the road, here in Texas.)

"That penis is like a third hand, helping to steady the wheel."

Wait a minute. I always thought the penis was used to point men in the right direction, like GPS.

at least back then the men had balls enough to admit they believed this BS. people would like to believe that this attitude doesn't exist any more. well, it does. they just hide it better. and for me, i'd rather know for sure what i was up against.

80.000 kilometers is only 49.709 miles....RIMSHOT and awaaaaay he goes!

Hey, hey, hey -- watch the penis jokes, ladies. And the "wanker" comments, and the old men in hats. And how we're so expensive to insure. Sheesh! What is this, payback time?

My wife is justifiably nervous when I'm behind the wheel. She drives more than me. Back when that commercial was made, women did not drive as much as they do, and they still don't drive as much as men. Men and women are every bit as competent as each other behind the wheel.

Except for old ladies, of course. Sorry. They cause more accidents being "cautious" than anyone.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums in hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as the constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

I think the comment about men and higher insurance premiums is hilereous! You know that's because men drive substantially more mileage than women; as they constitute more than 90% of the trucking industry. Getting insurance for a commercial truck, especially for owner-operators, is hugely expensive. It has nothing to do with who is the better driver.

It is well known that young men have higher insurance premiums. Regular young men, not long range truck drivers. You might want to stop pressing the post button over and over again and call an insurance agent for an explanation why. Kthxby.

corydalus: No rimshot... Perhaps I should have mentioned it bevore but I live in Germany, wich is only a little bigger than Arizona but has a much higher density - so driving 80000km a year in Germany is quite a lot - while it may be like nothing in the US with all those huge distances.

Oh my god ... old men in hats. When I was a kid, we would go into the city (by which I mean a place with over 40,000 people in it, 45 to be exact), which meant about 30 minutes of driving through fairly rural highway areas. Which means farm areas. Which means a PLETHORA of old men in various hats, usually in pickup trucks.

Every time we'd be going super slow on the highway, my parents would sigh and then someone would announce, "It looks like an old man in a hat." And that somehow would explain everything.

Old women can be bad drivers, but if men lived as long as women, I think the numbers of bad old drivers would be equal. And besides, old ladies in small towns have very few options. Either they can continue driving when they're 95 or they can become recluses and lose all their independence.

Insurance data and a Johns Hopkins study prove that men are genetically predisposed to be terrible drivers.

When boys and girls start out driving at the age of 16, girls are the better drivers. No question. They are so much better that in some states, a teen boy pays SIX TIMES as much insurance as a teen girl. This may be due to a genetic need to show off and engage in risky display to impress females, a la the peacock and its giant tail, as married teen male drivers have significantly fewer accidents than unmarried teen male drivers, though still more than married or unmarried teen female drivers.

As time progresses, males drive more. Males clock 74% more time on the road over a lifetime than females. This helps to compensate for their genetic inferiority; by the time they are adults in the 35-45 year old cohort, males and females pay the same for insurance. Over a lifetime, males, who get 74% more driving experience than females, experience a .8 difference in accidents per million miles driven (over a lifetime females have 5.9 accidents per miles driven and males have 5.1 accidents per miles driven, according to a 1998 Hopkins study.) However, even getting 74% more driving experience than females does not make males *safer* drivers, because despite their fractionally lower accident rate, the same study found they are involved in 3 times as many *fatal* accidents as females. Some of this may be due to the fact that most truckers are male, and the perverse incentives that keep truckers awake late at night driving when they are not in safe condition to drive. However, most of it is likely due to the genetic compulsion on males to take greater risks than females, which is why they are the disposable sex and we are easily able to persuade them to sacrifice their lives in wartime for the sake of rich old men who get stock options from oil companies....

Okay, I can't keep that up. All of the statistics I just quoted above are absolutely *true*, but no, I do not think men are genetically predisposed to be terrible drivers, or that men are genetically compelled to take risks. I *do* think that our culture encourages risk-taking behavior in men and overcaution in women; the overcaution in women is why they drive less over a lifetime, resulting in a slightly higher accident rate when they do drive, because they have less experience (NOTE TO SEXISTS: If "accidents per million miles driven" is the calculation, YOU CANNOT SAY that men's higher mileage is a factor that should be causing more accidents, and imply the lower rate somehow makes men all that! The mileage is already in the calculation; the only thing you can use men's higher mileage for when mileage is in the accident calculation is to say how much driving experience men have, and I'm sorry, but 74% more driving experience leading to a 15% advantage in total accidents and a 300% disadvantage in fatal accidents DOES NOT SPEAK WELL FOR MALE DRIVING SKILL.)

In other words, the statistics actually *do* bear out the proposition that in our culture, women are overall better drivers, and would be better still if we got more time on the road. Men start out *much* worse than women and only improve to women's level over time; by the time we're all dead, men have fewer absolute accidents but more fatal ones, and the fewer absolute accidents they have aren't *enough* fewer to compensate for their greater driving experience. Specifically, men must put in 75% more driving time than women to get 15% better, and that's defining "better" as absolute accidents while ignoring the fatality rate. This doesn't make it genetic, or inevitable. However, it does imply that if you have a teen son going out on a date, insist his girlfriend drive the car.

By the way, while men are 90% of the trucking industry, trucks are only 3% of the cars on the road, thus implying, if you do the math, that 94% of men are not truckers. It is really unlikely that the six times more that teen boys pay or the three times more that 24-year-old men pay than women/girls the same age is caused by the difference between the 6% of males who are truckers and the 94% of males who aren't.

I had no idea women saw the world in jump cuts to road signs while driving. I'd also be a bad driver if that happened!

Seriously, fuck 1960s Goodyear. Fuck Goodyear now.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the commercial is necessarily implying women are bad drivers. I think it was instead trying to say that a man should do everything he can to ensure his wife's safety on the dangerous road by using these superior tires.

Although, combine this "male protects female" social norm with the admitted undertones of her inexperience and it's almost as bad...

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the commercial is necessarily implying women are bad drivers. I think it was instead trying to say that a man should do everything he can to ensure his wife's safety on the dangerous road by using these superior tires.

Although, combine this "male protects female" social norm with the admitted undertones of her inexperience and it's almost as bad...

WOW, how disgusting! I hate commercials like this.

cobblestonesbeach, how did you know? Old men, sometimes with hats, have almost(always) ran me over when crossing the street when it's my turn cross.

Thank you, spirina! You said exactly what I was thinking while I was watching it and I lmao when I read your comment. Wtf *does* that even mean?

I called my s/o in to watch it and see if he had any idea what it was supposed to mean. He couldn't figure it out either.

I'm just not entirely sure if they are saying that the tires are safer for women (who, of course, are bad drivers) or that the tires are just safer in general and that's good for women (who, you know, would be totally helpless if their tire blew).

You know what? I do have trouble driving. My labia always seem to have a hard time reaching up to the steering wheel.

I lol'd.