We’re going to start this post by sprinkling a bit of knowledge:
The first woman in history that drove a car over a long distance was Bertha Ringer, better known as Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, the founder of Mercedes Benz along with German engineer Gottlieb Daimler.
In 1888 Bertha Benz set a Guinness world record by driving a vehicle known as Benz Patent-Motorwagen for 106 km. Accompanied by her two sons, she drove from Mannheim city, her residence to Pforzheim where she was born.
Bertha took the car from the garage without Karl’s knowledge because he didn’t like to brag about his creations. Back then any carriage that was not pulled by a horse was considered “the work of sorcery and witchcraft”
According to some sources, Bertha spent three days in Pforzheim with her family and the car quickly became known, people calling it a miracle.
CAN WOMEN REALLY DRIVE?
This question has been around for some time and there are a lot of jokes and funny stories about how bad women drive cars.
To answer this question, we have to keep in mind that to be good at anything, you have to like it, to be passionate about it.
Men love cars, they like driving them, they spend time to repair them and to learn what each part does and how everything works together. They also talk about cars all the time and it’s just more in their nature to be attracted to mechanical things.
Women on the other hand, the majority of them don’t enjoy driving that much, they don’t care about the car’s performance, how much horse power it’s got or if it’s petrol or diesel. They drive a car just because they need to go from point A to point B and that’s it.
The argument that women are not good at driving it’s not the whole story, it’s just like saying they are not good at football.
Of course they’re not, because they don’t like football, they don’t watch it or pay any attention to it.
Also it would be wrong to say that all women can’t drive, because this is just not true, there are plenty of women out there that drive very well, some women drive trucks, tractors, bulldozers, buses or ambulances.
We all seen videos with ladies that don’t know how to park or do a mistake in traffic and we just need to keep in mind that these are exceptions and those ladies usually had a reason for what happened and it’s usually related with the lack of experience.
Let’s do a quick exercise: let’s imagine a women that is very passionate about cars, she likes driving very much and wants to know everything there is about cars (and by the way, there are many women like that out there). The chances of this woman being a good driver are very high because if you put time and effort in something you like, sooner or later, you are going to be good at it.
We’re not even going to insist too much on the fact that statistically men are more likely to to be involved in car crashes because of bad driving habits than women.
Studies show that men are twice as likely to be involved in a collision due to poor behaviour, inexperience, carelessness or being in a hurry.
Most of us know make fun sometimes of our girlfriend, wife or just a female friend because she doesn’t know how to drive and as long as we’re just teasing them, that’s ok. The problem is when you’re saying that “all women can’t drive” and you are serious about it, that’s just not true and it can be easily proven.
A fact not known by too many people is that women used to compete in Formula1. Lella Lombardi is the last female driver to ever take part in a F1 event. She drove her Brabham-Ford at the Austrian Grand Prix in 1976 and managed to finish 12th.
There have been efforts in the recent years to encourage and find female talent that can compete in Formula1 and the most recent female appearances have been confined to practice sessions or failure to qualify.
One of the reasons why there are not more female drivers in motorsport is that 99% of the kids who chose to follow a path in this direction are males. You don’t see to many litle girls that want to be a F1 driver when they grow up.
To answer to our question once and for all: Can women drive?
The answer is yes, they can drive cars very well. If you think otherwise, you need to wake up, you’re not in 1920.
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