停车大作战：数据表明女性停车技术不如男性

屈联西

  2011年09月27日     沪江英语

　　Sorry ladies, official figures have revealed the truth: we are not very good at parking a car。
　　女士们对不起啦，官方数据说明了事实：我们真的不太会停车。
　　Statistic evidences：
　　Almost a third of all women who failed their driving test last year came unstuck due to parallel parking。
　　在英国，去年有三分之一的女性是因为不会平行停车而没有通过驾照考试。
　　Of the 170,000 women who failed their driving test in 2010 for mistakes in reversing or failing to use their mirrors, 55,000 failed on parking。
　　在英国，2010年有17万女性是因为不会使用后视镜而未通过驾照考试，其中有5.5万女性是在停车的时候不会用后视镜。
　　NOT ENOUGH?
　　And if those figures - released by the Driving Standards Agency - are not enough to ensure a rare victory for men in the battle of the sexes, then they have the support of science as well。
　　觉得驾驶标准局的这些数据还不够证明男人在这场性别大战中的绝对优势？没关系，我们还有科学研究的佐证：
　　Scientific support:
　　Researchers at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany asked 65 volunteers to park a £23,000 Audi - and found that women took up to 20 seconds longer than men。
　　德国波鸿鲁尔大学的实验：要求65位自愿被试者停一辆价值2万3千欧元的奥迪---结果发现女性要比男性多花20分钟！
　　Some women blame the problem on the fact their breasts make it more difficult to turn around while parking。
　　有些女性将原因归咎于她们胸部，表示她们停车的时候转身比较困难。
　　However, when they do eventually pass - one woman finally got through last year at the 21st attempt over 22 years - they will at least have the consolation of cheaper car insurance。
　　不过，女性们还是会有所安慰的：要是最后通过了驾照考试(比方说去年有位女士在尝试了22年后终于在第21次通过了)，她们可以得到比较便宜的汽车保险。
　　The figures back up another stereotype: the boy racer。
　　这些数据还佐证了另一个老生常谈的事实：男性爱赛车。
　　When young men get behind the wheel the testosterone goes into overdrive。
　　年轻的男性一旦手握方向盘，雄性激素就会让他们超速驾驶。
　　It helps to explain why almost 40,000 men were failed last year for moving off too fast, while another 30,500 fell foul of their examiner for jumping the lights。
　　这也就可以解释为什么去年有4万名男性因为速度太快和另外3万5百名因为闯红灯而未通过考试了。
　　Other statisitics:
　　About 1.5million people take a driving test each year. So far this year the pass rate is 50.7 per cent for men and 44.1 per cent for women。
　　每年大约有150万人参加驾照考试，今年到目前为止，男性的通过率是50.7%而女性的通过率是40.1%。
　　Female drivers need an average 52 hours of tuition to pass but men speed through in just 36 hours of lessons。
　　女性驾驶员需要平均52小时的辅导时间来通过考试，男性的速度要快得多，只需要36小时的课程。