So in today's episode, we're gonna talk about when we appeared

on Talk TV and had a chat with Vanessa. Yes.

Quite an interesting conversation with Vanessa as people might know

already. Memorable experience for you, Kev. Very

memorable. So describe what

happened. So basically what happened is Talk TV

got in touch with us And said, would we be

up for doing a short

interview with Vanessa On why men

should be taken off the road, and would the roads be safer

with just women drivers? Yep. And there was a report

to back that that question up. So yeah. So

we did a little bit of research into the report, didn't we? We did a

bit of planning, a bit of preparation. John. Yeah. I did all that. I had

my you know, before going on, we knew exactly what we could say.

We had questions. We had answers to those questions. So we

was Probably pretty prepared. Yeah. And, actually,

the preparing for it went quite a long way for

helping us to manage Our nerves and anxiety about

appearing on live TV, because let's face it, it's quite different from

being on a podcast, Stisner. Well, on a podcast, we can take our

time. A lot of people won't see the outtakes or hear the outtakes

that we have to do. But live TV is literally

that. It's live TV, so it's as it is.

Yeah. And it was definitely out of our comfort zone, but was quite

surprised. We were both very calm. So even though it was

out of our comfort zone, we did our prep, we knew what we were

planning to say. And we did it. And we did. And, yeah,

we were we were perfectly calm and in control until we

went live. And then we got the question straight

away, which threw me a little bit. And then I suppose from there, I'm on

the back foot always. So that was, Oh, right. Didn't quite

expect that, but here we go. Let's try and answer this, as best I

can. Yeah. Vanessa was definitely She

definitely went for you in terms of you're the man. The

men are causing all the problems on the road. So, Kev, what are you

gonna do to sort it out, or should we be taking men off the road?

And yeah. And then, basically, what I wanted to do was

say My thoughts, my,

research that I'd done of why men have more speed in

fines, they have more, They get caught

more. Motoring offenses. Motoring I I couldn't think of the

word for it, but What it is is I I needed

to back that up and say, well, this is the reason why. And I didn't

really get a chance to, so we thought, do you What we'll do is we'll

do a podcast, and we can do it in our time about

what we feel is the reason behind what we

do. Yeah. And It was a great opportunity. We've now been

on live TV, so we're really pleased with the fact that we've

been on, we've done it, that's down in our experiences.

Live TV in the future won't be so much out of our comfort

zone, and we learn a lot. So we would look at lots

of Different angles next time that we do it. So that's that's the

first thing, isn't it? Yeah. Exactly. And it's it thinks a learning curve, isn't it?

And that's what we tell our People that are learning to drive, that's what people

with anxiety and stress come to us. You know, we we're putting people in

those situations, but it's a more controlled environment.

But, yeah, I think it's, definitely a learning curve. It

was. So we looked at this report that the

whole piece the whole segment was about.

And actually so the the the actual report was called would

Britain's roads be safer if only women in drove.

And the report was put together by a vehicle

sales website. And, actually, what they did was

they pulled bits and pieces of data

from different places, and then they merged them together

and manipulated the data, to come out with something that was

really quite controversial. So for them,

it was a great piece because it got lots of Reaction. But.

And this is a really big but. When you actually

look at the report and the information that it was based on,

The whole thing was flawed. They took a travel

survey from 2021. Now the

survey itself says that These are not typical

figures. These, show a massive decrease

on pre pandemic times. So the survey

itself shows that the information is influenced by other

things being COVID and the fact that lots of people

were still working at home. So even though it wasn't a time of

down, there was an increase in the number of people working from

home, and they state this really clearly on the survey. Right? So

it's not typical statistics. Now the

survey was also based purely on personal

travel only. It didn't include people who

drive for work. So van drivers, lorry

drivers, bus drivers, driving instructors, It says anybody

who drives as part of their work was not included.

So that's a massive Number of drivers,

massive number of people who weren't included in this

survey. And, actually, it shows it because The highest

reason for travel in that survey was going shopping,

and commuting came 3rd. So that's one

area where the whole report was flawed. But then

what they did is they had a look at Touring offenses,

but they looked at motor and offenses for 2022.

And if you look at the statistics For motor and offences in

2022, it rises sharply because

everyone was back on the road and it went back to

Pre pandemic levels. So you weren't comparing

like for like. You had different years and you had different travel

patterns. And, of course, your motoring offenses include

everybody who's on the road, not just people who

are traveling for pleasure and leisure. Yeah. And that's what our

research on them. We was trying to get that across. We wasn't gonna say that

in the in the interview, but we wanted to highlight the fact

that The report is little

bit misleading Yeah. In the figures that you're saying. Yeah. I mean, I

would say it was hugely misleading. So so really

one of the messages there is whenever you're hearing something or

reading something is have a look at What the

report or what the article doesn't say?

What are the pieces that are missing? And maybe

look very carefully at where they're getting their figures from, where

are they getting their data from, and is it just something that's

completely made up to be as controversial as

possible? Or is it something that that stands

up, is rigorous? Yeah. And I think for us, you

know, what we was gonna try and get across in that report

was that men and women Both have the

same skill set. Yes. Cool. I mean, you're teaching people to drive.

You know that gender is irrelevant.

Exactly. You know, We can all put a clutch down. We can all

steer. But that, again, is a skill of driving.

What we wanted to try and get across was It's the behavior

and what causes the behavior in people when they're

driving. Yep. So what is it? Now I

did try to have a look at the statistics, and I found found it

hard to find exactly where their statistics

came from. I couldn't match it up to to look at it

exactly. But what they were talking about was that in

2022, The motoring offenses were

carried out. Around 80% were male and

20% were female. So there is quite a divide

there. Yeah. And then we and, you know, the figures don't

lie, do they, in those figures? But you gotta take into account, I

think, Why were people getting those driving offenses? What was

happening? And I think most people,

Would say that men are the more riskier. They

take risky options, don't they? Yeah. And certainly

in insurance terms, Jurors tend to

make insurance for females cheaper than for males because of

that tendency see for there to be more risky behavior. Yeah. And I

think what we need to look at and what we do is look at the

driving behavior behind those decisions that people are

making. Yeah. And we can challenge them at an earlier age

so that when they come to drive on their own, When they're late

for work or they're driving their van that has a 100

drops and they're halfway through the day and they've only done 20,

And they still need to finish by 5 because they gotta go home and do

whatever. What makes them

speed? What makes them take those risks? And

that's what I think the problem is. It's not so much the

men are getting more Driving convictions or offenses,

it's the what is causing it. Yep. Definitely. And

if you think that when it comes down to the motor That

included everybody, included people who were driving, like you say, delivery

drivers, people who drive as part of their

work. So This is where you get those other

influencing factors. When you're driving for leisure and pleasure, you might

not be under quite so much pressure. Whereas if you're driving

from for work or to get to meetings or something else, you

might feel that there's more pressure there from your

colleagues from your workplace. Yeah. And I think

as well, if we looked at the miles that we

cover, I think you're gonna find that men

cover more miles annually, and that just

equates So the more time you spend on the road, the more miles you're covering,

the more likely you are to make mistakes.

Yeah. Absolutely. Now that doesn't say that we

are condoning that at all. And when I'd what I could

find in the figures was one that When

it came down to convictions, there are far more

court cases and convictions for motoring offenses than

there are for any other offence. Now I had no idea until I was

trying to look at these figures. So motor and offences are

higher than anything else when it comes to going through the justice

system, but also that 35%

Of those motoring offenses are speeding. So

speeding is one of the biggest things that's going on.

But that's also if you take it 1 step

further, I think it's a our life now.

We always want things faster. Yep. You know, which

is Amazon. Other brands are available, but

what happens is we want things now. Yep. So

we are faster drivers. Yeah. All your deliveries, all your

couriers now, they're giving you a rough estimate of a

time, And I'm guessing that these drivers actually have

to try and meet those times that are being given out. They might even be

being rewarded for meeting in those times. I don't know. It's a

pain and a pleasure, isn't it? You know, do you forfeit the pain

because you haven't done what you're supposed to do, Or do you get the pleasure

from yes. I've done that. Yeah. You know? And I think this is where we

need to look at what we're actually doing,

with the task, you know, with speeding.

Why are we speeding? Well, it might be that You do a

journey every single day, Monday to

Friday, and you are so used to that road. Yep. So you

don't notice. And you don't notice what speed you're doing,

and nothing ever happens on that road. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, there's a mobile speed camera, flash

flash, you're done. But you don't even realize you're doing 35 in a

30, Because it's just what you do. It's a habit. Well, let's

face it. Lots of people when they're driving, particularly people who are

who consider themselves be confident drivers, they were actually thinking

about other things, and they're not thinking about their driving at all.

So this comes back to actually thinking about your

driving while you're driving, and you're much more likely to stick

within the speed limits. And most Going off

driving convictions now. We're going on to accidents. Most accidents

happen within 2 miles of the home. Yep. But why

why is that? Yeah. Because people switch off, don't they? People switch off. They

start thinking about what they're gonna have for dinner. They start thinking,

oh, I've done this journey all the time. There's never been a car come round

that bend, so you just pull out. It's it's those normal

things that you do because it's the norm. Yeah. It doesn't. And then

all of a sudden, there's a unexpected, oh, didn't

that's not happened before. Yeah. I think when I learned that

nowadays, after learning that piece of information. If I'm on a

long journey, it's within that sort of, like,

5 miles of home that I start to pay extra attention because I know

that that's when something is more likely to happen if I'm not paying attention.

As society is, we are just here and

now. We want it now. You know? There is that Click of the button. I

want it. You know? I I don't wanna be doing 30 all the time. 30

is boring. You know? I can be doing 40 on this. It's safe to do

40, But that's the mind playing our

thoughts. Yeah. You know? And we need to just change that slightly. Yeah.

Catching the mindset. Because, See, the reality is is that driving over

the speed limit doesn't normally get you anywhere very much

faster. There's normally When they do research on it, there's normally only a couple of

minutes in it, isn't there? Yeah. It's exactly. No. Really, if you think about

you're doing 60 miles an hour It's on a motorway

and you go 60 miles, it takes you an hour. Yep. You do 70 miles

an hour, it's gonna save you about 5 minutes. Yep. And what's

5 minutes? Can I know I know it's 70 on a motorway, so it's not

breaking the speed limit? But what is is just the time

difference. It's the 5 minutes is nothing. Yep. Yeah. It really is

just minutes. So paying attention to your driving

and knowing that actually going faster is often not

quicker. And one way of thinking about this is, you know, people that

take risks. How many times have you been

overtaken Doing a speed limit. And then you get to the

traffic lights that are down the road, and the person that's overtaken you is the

car in front. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, it just happens all the

time. And I think the other thing that I noticed when I

read that report, There were loads and loads of comments on it because it

was on a website. It was a blog piece. There were loads and loads of

comments, and there were lots and lots of comments from men

saying, yes, but women drive too slow. And I

had to go, hold on a minute.

If There were more speeding offenses by

men than women. Is it that women are driving too

slow? Or is it that maybe women are driving

at the speed limit? Could that be the answer? Maybe.

It may be. It's too slow for what they Consider.

Yes. And this is what I'm saying. It's about the thoughts and the behaviors. Yep.

And that's what needs to be challenged. Yep. So have a think.

Pay attention to your driving. Look at what the speed limit is,

where you're driving, and see how much difference it really makes

by driving at the speed limit. I'm sure it will make your journey

far more pleasant and comfortable and will

only make a difference of a minute or 2. Exactly. And you'll end up getting

a A little bit more calmer as well. I think so. Definitely.

Great. So I hope you found that interesting. I'm gonna post some of

the links to the report And the statistics that I could find

in the show notes so that you can have a look for yourself, let us

know what you think. All of the details are in the show

notes as always. Remember to share with anybody else who you

think might find this useful as well, or perhaps he maybe

needs to have a think about their speed and all their risky behaviors. We'd

love it if you could leave us a 5 star review on your favorite podcast

player. And So all that leaves us to say is, until next

time, have a great day, whatever you're doing.