Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

A recent policy in Hangzhou caused chuckles and anger online, after special extra-large car spaces were introduced for female drivers because of women's supposed ineptness at parking. This might seem like an amusing but inconsequential affair. But it's a microcosm of a whole realm of false, and dangerous, assumptions about gender on the road.

Jokes about women drivers have been a mainstay of humor since pedal was first put to metal. 1920s issues of "Punch" and other English "comic" magazines show inept young ladies confusing gears, flirting with policemen to avoid punishment, and a raft of other jokes. The idea that women can't master the technical skills of driving is an old and pernicious one.

It's also nonsense. All evidence shows that women are both better and safer drivers than men. Women outscore men on driving tests. Women are 27 percent less likely than men to cause accidents, and spectacularly less likely to cause serious or fatal accidents. According to a 2012 US study, 80 percent of deadly crashes are caused by men. Men are three times more likely to be ticketed for "aggressive" driving than women. Where allowed by law, insurance companies, our most rigorous assessors of risk, give better rates to female drivers than male ones; the average six-month insurance policy in the US is around $700 for women, and $770 for men.

The reason why male drivers scorn female ones is, in fact, the very cause of women being better drivers; female drivers obey the rules much more. They stay within speed limits. They avoid shortcuts.  They go when the light is green, rather than yellow. They check their mirrors carefully at intersections.

To a male driver used to sloppiness over safety, confident of his own ability to ignore the rules to get where he's going faster, this is frustrating and "bad driving." And most of the time, those few extra seconds added by taking the time to check are a frustration, and the guy who ignores them slides on by. But it's that deadly 1 percent that really counts.

In a UK survey of 13,000 drivers on whether the 70 miles-per-hour speed limits on motorways should be raised to 80, women overwhelmingly disagreed, and men overwhelmingly agreed. Men were confident that they could easily handle that extra 10 miles, women weren't - perhaps more worried about the men going at 80 than themselves.

But in these myths that women drivers are worse, because they're safer, we can see a whole mess of toxic patriarchal ideas. Auto adverts targeted at men emphasize power, freedom, and sexuality; ones targeted at women emphasize safety and family. Men are worse than women at assessing their own abilities across the board; in particular, most men believe they are better drivers, better fighters, and better lovers than they actually are.

Men believe they can fight like tigers and drive like demons, even if they actually fight like children and drive like fools. Patronizingly stupid policies like Hangzhou's parking areas only reinforce this. In the worst patriarchies, like Saudi Arabia, women are banned from driving altogether so that men can keep the sphere of freedom for themselves; it should come as no surprise that Saudi men are notoriously awful drivers.

Beyond this, the false idea that men are more skilled extends into a whole range of areas. Men are more confident in their own abilities at work, and hence more likely to be assessed as skilled by others, even when objective tests show women beat them. The internalized damage of patriarchy means women consistently underrate their own skills, avoiding applying for positions because they feel they're not qualified, whereas men will shoot for positions they're wildly unsuited for.

We've seen this in the recent Brexit fiasco. The male leaders in England, likely prime minister Boris Johnson, current Prime Minister David Cameron, and threatened Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, are all men wildly out of their depth, flailing around like stranded jellyfish. In smaller and less powerful Scotland, in contrast, where the shake-up of politics caused by the rise of the Scottish National Party has destroyed the old boys' network, all the leaders are women. And in stark contrast to their counterparts across the border, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and opposition leader Ruth Davidson have been smart, sharp, and in control. I have no doubt that Boris Johnson thinks he's a great driver. But I also know who I'd rather get in a car with.

The author is an editor with the Global Times. jamespalmer@globaltimes.com.cn