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Oh! These drivers

Men or women, all are same in the game of driving

PHOTO: M. MOORTHY

ENTERPRISING Determined effort.

"A crookedly placed vehicle in the middle of the parking lot? Must be a woman." This one-liner on a website further explains how precariously women drivers overtake and provides a list of precautions while confronting these `bad drivers'.

Maureen Rees, a Welsh cleaner became a legendary character in Britain for her lavish spending of over 100 pounds to pass the practical test of Driving Standard Agency to obtain a driving licence.

In India, be it knocking off the bumper of another's vehicle at a signal or taking an awkward U-turn on narrow roads, the `law-abiding men drivers' will tell you where the blame lies.

Too perfect

There are even driving schools that append a couple of classes for women learners, perhaps foreseeing their difficulty on the roads. "These are stark examples not because they recur, but because they are unusual. The women drivers are too perfect to make a mistake," observes a driving school tutor.

Meet Swapna Muthuraman, a driving tutor, who has reduced the commutative dependency of several homemakers and schoolteachers to zilch. A committed tutor, she handles exclusive training for two-wheeler learners single-handedly with the prime intention of boosting the count of women drivers in the city.

"The advantages are plenty," she lists out. "Economically, it saves a woman's purse from slimming down heavily due to undue expenditure on autos, and psychologically, she is able to experience a sense of independence."

She feels exorbitant fee of driving schools plays the villain in keeping women learners and drivers off the road.

Most driving schools charge not less than Rs.2500 for a combination of learning and licence, forcing the housewives to opt out.

For those women who are looking for driving schools only for learning to drive rather than obtaining a driving licence along with it, the options are plenty in the city — if the burgeoning informal driving schools run by women are any indication.

Nominal fee

Says Mrs. Muthuraman: "These schools' clientele are mainly the close-knit network of friends. The fee is also very nominal as they don't advertise."

Agrees Swathi Sivaraman, a homemaker, who teaches two-wheeler driving to over 20 women everyday. Most of them are my neighbours and their acquaintances. It just takes a week to make them comfortable with the vehicle," she says.

The enthusiastic learners tell how the driving skill comes in handy as they can drop their children at school and buy groceries from the market.

"It is fun riding the vehicle at highways after getting trained in narrow lanes," says K. Pavithra, a novice who now commutes over 12 kilometres a day for several purposes.

"But the problem on the highways is these men," she adds. "They are too impatient to even wait for the signal to turn green."

S.AISHWARYA

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