Sibling rivalries are just a part of life. When you’re growing up you are always fighting for attention from your parents or fighting for the remote control. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Being an only child, this study might not apply to me. I guess I would be the best and worst driver of my siblings…
Anyways, a study has been conducted by Privilege Car Insurance in which they found that the first-born of their parents are the worst drivers.
According to Metro, they studied the habits of 1,395 drivers and found that older siblings were very likely to be the worst drivers out of their younger counterparts.
89% of the eldest siblings are likely to speed and 35% of those will receive fines or tickets because of it.
The study continues saying that 47% of these elder siblings will cut off drivers and that sounds about right. The older sibling is usually more entitled right?
They are also more likely to be in an accident because they are trying to multi-task. 17% were also found to be trying to put on make-up while driving, you know super safe things.
22% of these people that multi-tasked were in minor collisions and 15% were found to have a serious accident within the last five years.
Charlotte Field who was head of the study told The Metro:
“Sibling rivalry is a famous family issue, in particular when arguing over who is the better driver.
Younger drivers with DriveXpert telematics policies are given a score based on their safe driving ability.
This technology can not only encourage safe driving and reward those who do so with lower insurance premiums, but can also help siblings decide once and for all who is best behind the wheel.”
So maybe let your younger sibling drive you around next time, that way you won’t get a ticket!
Now let’s take a look at men versus women drivers, because chances are you are one of those types of people.
According to a study published in the Springer Journal: Memory & Cognition, men navigate more efficiently than their female counterparts. Basically, men use shortcuts when navigating and women like to take routes that they know.
Alexander Boone of UC Santa Barbara headed the study and I hope that he isn’t on anyone’s hit list just yet.
Boone and his team conducted two experiments which had students perform tasks on a computer. In the first one, they had 68 participants and they were asked to familiarize themselves with a layout of a maze. Basically they had to find their way through the maze by remembering landmarks to get to their destination.
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Then the second experiment involved 72 participants who did the same thing as the first test, except they had different versions of the maze. One version had the landmarks in the background and one didn’t. The reasoning here was to understand whether men or women use these landmarks differently when navigating.
The research team also asked all participants to complete a survey involved finding out info such as their sense of direction, the strategies they believe they use to find their way, and whether they often play video games.
Boone explained that:
“As predicted from previous research, these experiments showed that men were more likely to take shortcuts and on average reached their goal location faster than women. In contrast, female participants were more likely to follow learned routes and wander. In both experiments, men were significantly more efficient than women, even after controlling for the effects of strategy.”
The study also concluded that men were better at this task because they got to their destination much quicker. The authors of the study also covered their bases by noting that, “it is important to point out that these are differences in average performance between men and women, and some women were just as efficient as the best male performers.”
Boone concluded:
“It is also possible that the sex difference in efficiency is due in part to facility with the interface or navigation in virtual environments, as men tend to spend more time playing video games. Overall, our research indicates that the sex difference in navigation efficiency is large, and is partly related to navigation strategy.”
So next time you and your significant other are driving, test this theory out but maybe don’t tell them you are at first. You might be sleeping on the couch if you do…