Just what is the deal with men and maps?

So, you're in a car with your boyfriend and you're lost. Sound familiar? Most of us girls would pull over and ask a passer-by for directions but our male counterparts would rather drive around lost for hours rather than take advice from a stranger. Just what is it about men and directions?

Girls are great drivers and that's why we deserve to have cheap woman car insurance right? We're often able to show off our skills behind the wheel by navigating our way around the UK, travelling from one place to another, usually without any difficulties and without needing any help. However, if we did ask a stranger for help it wouldn't damage our pride and we would never regret getting to our destination any earlier because we failed to figure out the problem by ourselves.

I've lost count of the times my boyfriend has surprised me and taken me out for a day trip somewhere without even looking at the map beforehand to know where he's going. What's even worse is that he's only been driving for six months and only last week was searching for motor insurance quotes on his new Ford Fiesta, complaining about woman car insurance being so much cheaper.

So what is the deal with men asking for directions? According to scientists, men and women use different parts of their brain for navigating. A study carried out at the University of Ulm in Germany asked 12 men and 12 women to find their way out of a virtual maze that was displayed on the computer screen. The scientists found that the men managed to work their way out of the maze in an average of two minutes and 22 seconds. Sadly, and despite the fact that women receive cheap car insurance for their excellent driving skills, the females taking part in the experiment took three minutes and 16 seconds.

Here's where it gets technical. During the experiment, brain activity showed that men used the left hippocampal region of their brain whereas women used the right prefrontal cortex of their brain. This might not mean a lot to many people but basically the evidence suggests that women use landmarks as a way of navigating, whereas men apparently use geometry. Remember the time you told you friend to drive past the One Eyed Dog until you get to a set of traffic lights next to a red building; that's what they mean by using landmarks.

Of course that's not the only experiment to be carried out on the difference between men and women's navigational skills; apparently it seems to be a big ponderance in the world of science. A recent study carried out by the University of East London not only looked at the difference between straight men and women, it also included homosexuals in their studies. According to their findings, homosexual men have the same navigational skills as a heterosexual woman in their reliance on landmarks to help them navigate better. Whether this would entitle homosexual men to cheap woman car insurance is doubtful but it's interesting to know.

So, how can we women improve our navigational skills if all the studies seem to show that men are better than us? Well, the easiest way that any driver can help themselves find their way on the roads is by purchasing a little helper; I am of course talking about a Sat Nav. These little devices can help you plan your journey from A to B and tell you every turn you'll need to take to make your journey an easy one. Research in America even suggested that women felt safer when driving with a Sat Nav in their vehicle, making them feel confident travelling into unknown areas.

If you've saved money on your woman car insurance in the past then why not treat yourself to a Sat Nav and prove to all those scientists that women can navigate better than men? You can buy a Sat Nav from most online shops at the click of a mouse including http://www.tesco.co.uk, http://www.halfords.com and http://www.ebay.co.uk. Or better still ask your boyfriend to buy you one for your birthday!

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