SAMANTHA BRICK: I’m a brilliant driver — better than most of the men reading this

On French country roads you get the odd holiday driver who insists on motoring far below the speed limit.

These tourist types are everywhere at this time of year where I live in the Dordogne, south-west France (and will be for the next six months).

Last weekend, when I was going to the supermarket and pressed for time, one flashy British convertible was moseying along in Sunday driver mode.

I could tell it was a man because of his Panama hat. His female passenger had a scarf tied around her hair.

He was paying scant attention to where he was going, looking left and right at the (admittedly beautiful) scenery.

Pointing out this chateau, that manoir, he took a bend in the middle of the road.

No problem. I hung back and gave him space.

I knew the route well and the spots where I could safely overtake later.

When we went through one village, I predicted that the traffic lights we stopped at would turn green pretty swiftly. Yet when they changed, ten seconds later he hadn’t moved and was still looking around, oblivious to the fact he could now pull away. So I gave a little toot on my horn. A friendly “get moving”.

Well, the reaction I got!

You’d have been forgiven for thinking I had keyed his car.

The obscene hand gestures, the aggressive honking of the horn, the endless flashing of his lights when I smartly overtook.

At age 53 I can state, hand on heart, I’m a rather brilliant driver and a better motorist than most of the men reading this.

Yet, in 2024, while (most) men are in full agreement about equal rights for women, what still brings on the red mist is the confidence of female drivers like myself.

This week it was reported that one such motorist, Peter Abbott, 60, was warned he faces jail after being filmed screaming and swearing at a woman driver and banging on her windscreen.

Abbott launched his abusive tirade after TV production company boss Samantha Isaacs tooted her horn at him for cutting her up at a supermarket petrol station.

In court Mrs Isaacs said she beeped her horn as if to say “look out” because Abbott’s driving had caused her to slam on the brakes.

The audacity of a woman knowing where the horn is and what it’s there for.

Like Mrs Isaacs, and me, I’m betting most females have found themselves in a situation where a man has reacted in similar fashion after she has had the nerve to assert their rights on the road.

How dare a woman do that!

There is this archaic notion that female drivers are inferior behind the wheel.

We can’t park, we’re too cautious on the road, we dither turning right and even with a GPS are likely to get lost.

And I’m willing to bet that in most couples it’s the person with the XY chromosome who automatically gets behind the wheel of the family car on the misplaced assumption that he’s the better driver.

But I’m afraid, chaps, the statistics say otherwise.

By all accounts and on all metrics, male drivers — of any age — are much more likely to crash their car than female drivers.

The RAC, for example, says a man is three times more likely to be in a road collision than a woman, while one insurance report stated that 67 per cent of all claims made are by men.

Yet still, the frankly daft myth that men make better drivers refuses to fade into history. While divvying up the household chores between the sexes might be fairer than ever before, the minute you fasten your seatbelt you might as well have time-travelled back to the 1950s.

So, how did I get to become such an excellent driver?

Well, “Brummie Kevin”, my first driving instructor in the late 1980s, was very much of the “can’t see, can’t go” school of driving.

Safety first is not a bad way to learn.

He also drummed it into me that a green light was probably going to change sooner than I thought.

I passed my test aged 22 and living in London, and promptly bought a second-hand Volvo hatchback for shopping and trips to see my family back in Birmingham.

For working-class women like me, having your own car was a mark of independence.

A driving licence was also vital for my career.

I spent my early 20s as a TV researcher, in and out of hire cars, expected to cover hundreds of miles to get the team to filming locations.

It meant I drove all sorts of vehicles, too — from Land Rovers on a rural vet series in Devon, to an off-road 4 x 4 in Ibiza for a fly-on-the wall documentary series, to a Hummer across a five-lane Hollywood freeway.

Wearing three-inch heels didn’t put me off my clutch control.

I also spent a couple of years in the back of police cars filming those motorway documentary series that were popular on TV in the 1990s, and picked up plenty of driving tips from the various officers I worked with.

I’ve driven across San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge; through Arizona’s intense desert heat; and in the gridlocked tourist trap that is Las Vegas.

I spent a year living in Los Angeles, commuting along coastal highways and through canyons.

All those thousands and thousands of miles and yet I’ve never had an accident. I’m respectful of speed limits because, as my dad likes to parrot, it’s better to turn up late than not turn up at all.

I will always let someone out in traffic.

I’m that motorist who will typically raise their hand in a respectful “thanks” when, in turn, you let me out.

And yet I have been on the receiving end of male road rage ever since I passed my test more than 30 years ago.

In my late 20s I was lucky enough to be able to drive to work in central London in a white Mercedes Convertible Classic.

One sunny spring morning I was nipping into Soho from my home in Kew Gardens when I was stopped aggressively by a male cab driver on the busy four exit Holland Park roundabout.

He pulled up in front of my car gesturing like a lunatic for me to get out.

I hadn’t opened the door before he launched into his tirade, spitting and frothing as he told me he did not like the style of my driving because I was too aggressive for him.

Yes, I was a woman who always drove safely but also knew how to use her fifth gear.

He continued to rant and rave, absolutely convinced I’d scraped the side of his black cab.

Well, we both looked at the door. It was filthy, with the dust and muck intact but not a trace of my sleek white Mercedes paint.

The simple fact was that he hated me for overtaking him, for being a confident female driver.

The irony is, I am a nervous passenger — and that’s down to being in accidents in taxis.

When I turned 30, I witnessed three incidents while riding in minicabs in one year.

And who was at the wheel each time? A man.

That year I was head of entertainment at Sky One and work pressures meant it was easier at times to take cabs than drive myself.

On the first occasion, the driver, who was picking me up from A&E after I had injured my foot at work, wasn’t paying attention.

When the lights changed he rear-ended the car in front, whose driver had decided not to be an amber gambler.

The second incident happened on the way to the airport, and the third at another set of traffic lights. More shunts and scrapes and fury.

Sadly, when I moved to France in 2008 to live with my carpenter husband Pascal, I had to lose the convertibles.

My beloved sports cars were perfect while living in London but they were never going to work on single-lane country roads.

Instead, I had to get to grips with his fleet of work vehicles, including a Mercedes lorry, a white Citroen van (my favourite) — and I’ve even been known to use the mini-digger.

Today, I am just as happy behind the wheel of our Land Cruiser as I am in my own car — no, not a “girly” Mini, dinky Fiat or, heaven forbid, an electric car, but a red Hilux pick-up truck called Darlene.

Mansplaining drivers are alive and well across the Channel, too.

Whenever Pascal and I are in my car and there is any suggestion from him of what route I should take or what spot I should park in, a curt “Merci , monsieur le co-pilote” usually shuts him up.

That’s the thing: we women would never dream to comment, criticise or advise our other halves when they are behind the wheel.

But they just can’t help it.

So sorry guys, this lady-driver will never be one of those women too timid to drive on a motorway or refuse to get behind the wheel at night.

I won’t ever ask you to park my car for me, because I’m the best reverse parker you’ll ever meet.

And thanks to hours (and hours) behind the wheel of vehicles of all shapes, ages and sizes, I’m as comfortable driving on the M25 as I am on the the hairpin bends of the French Alps.

Face it chaps — we women are better drivers than you could ever hope to be.

We are risk-averse, respectful on the road, and if we do honk our horn at you? It usually means a courteous “Oi, we’re here, too!”

Before you have a go at me, just think about the last time you encountered a driver who was tail-gating, flashing lights to get past or cutting in and out of motorway traffic like a maniac, and I promise you it won’t have been a woman.

No, we drive efficiently, safely and with the minimum of fuss. You could learn a thing or two from me!