Because we females are genetically predisposed to multi-tasking, men tend to think of us as inherently unfocused.  Nowhere is this more apparent than on the boulevards of any city, where each day a man ekes out a reason to perpetuate the myth that women are lousy drivers.  Why?  Because we don’t pay attention.

I have to ask…pay attention to what?

It doesn’t matter that we are piloting roughly two tons of fiberglass and steel at speeds in excess of twenty-five miles per hour — we are merely doing what comes naturally.  So we manage to veer a little too far to the left or right now and again and scare the living daylights out of our fellow commuters…what’s life without a few excuses to call your insurance agent?

The automobile and its relative position in traffic usually dictate which tasks we can accomplish while in motion or while attempting to be in motion.   Women have an innate ability to perform a wide variety of functions while simultaneously navigating the open — and ofttimes merged-for-repairs — road.  We can discipline our children, locate and retrieve fallen objects in the back seat without looking, fish for favorite CDs out of glove compartments crammed with “emergency” napkins, skim the produce section of the newspaper, serve snacks, and precisely apply our makeup.  We can instill our kids with age-tested pearls of wisdom in the same breath we use to curse the idiot who just cut us off on the freeway.

We can even practice quantum psychology by counting the four-foot stuffed bear next to the empty child seat as an occupant because our child swears it talks, thereby qualifying our solitary selves for the HOV lane in heavy traffic.

Of course, all this action behind the wheel terrifies men, who think of driving as being solely a means of getting from one place to another.  Men drive with an almost Puritanical sense of purpose.  “This is my car.  I drive it.  The only other thing I want to do is enjoy driving it.”

In order for a man to enjoy driving his car, anything that might hinder him in his pursuit must be excluded from his reality.  This usually means installing a spousal unit in the front passenger seat who will hand him his coffee, check the road map, quiet the children and scan the radio channels for sports broadcasts.  In fact, men are so completely convinced that sanctity in movere is paramount, they give women the one thing they are sure women should not have – their own cars.  Which means men can’t get anything else done in a car except the driving.

Women, on the other hand, cannot conceive of processing only one train of thought at any given time.  Why waste a perfectly good opportunity to entertain our passengers and get from point A to point B?  The truth is, it’s a survival tactic.  How many men have YOU seen  stuck in traffic sans spouse with screaming toddlers in the back seat during rush hour on the one morning they needed to be at work fifteen minutes ago?

If men really want serenity on the highways of life they should give up on talking to women drivers about “concentrating on the road.”  They should buy us automobiles that allow us a lot of maneuverability between those lines painted on the streets.  They should add a shade of gray to traffic lights so we’d have “stop, slow down, go,” and “wait for her.”  They should, as responsible male motorists, look for and defer to women in the drivers’ seats.  Or they should simply take the plunge and buy us a chauffeur.

Men really need to watch out for us.  We can’t do it ourselves because we’re watching out for everything else.