I drove home to Albany the weekend, and when I was sharing my plans with some friends, they laughed and said, “Ooohh… God help everyone on the road!”

I’ll be honest, I’m not the most focused driver ever: I like to listen to music (and sing!) when I drive, I occasionally get lost driving, and I’ll send the occasional text message while behind the wheel.

(Speaking of which, I just heard about an ABC News study that found that texting while driving impairs drivers equivalent to having consumed 3 to 4 drinks before driving… yikes!).

But I’m also one of the better young drivers I know–I drive in Manhattan and back and forth from Long Island and Albany with relative ease, I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket, and I’ve never been in an accident.  Our society assumes that women are bad drivers… but maybe there’s a different story behind it than the simple “bad woman driver” stereotype.

The female ideal in Generation Y expects young women to simultaneously be overachieving and capable… but also kind of flighty and silly.  I wonder whether girls feel that they can compensate for being class president by pretending to drive poorly.  I remember an interview I did for Supergirls Speak Out with a student at Southern Methodist University, and she was telling me that the most popular girls on campus–the incredibly smart, talented, pretty sorority sisters–often almost hit people with their cars!  Girls do get a lot of attention for being “bad drivers.”  I remember in high school that whenever a girl would get into a car accident or tap another car in the parking lot (which was frequently), she would be the talk of the school for the day. 

There’s that funny scene in the movie Clueless with Cher behind the wheel during her road test shrieking at the pedestrians and stop signs that “came out of nowhere,” and I wonder if it’s that mentality–that girls driving badly is funny and cute–that this trend still persists today (after all, Clueless was a 1995 movie).

But I don’t think girls are actually worse drivers than boys–statistically, boys get in more accidents, which is why they pay so much more for car insurance.  (There is a hilarious YouTube video on this note– although not appropriate for work).  But I think in teen culture, this idea that girls can’t drive well has a major ripple effect;  does the concept that girls can be book smart and be class president, but also get positive reinforcement for yelling, “That stop sign came out of nowhere!” mean that we as a society aren’t ready to see women with actual responsibilities and critical faculties?

What do you think?  Are girls better drivers than boys?  Is girls driving poorly cute?