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LONDON (Reuters) - North Wales police couldn't believe their eyes when a camera at a notorious accident spot caught a driver using both hands to put on her make-up. Donna Maddock, 22, was filmed as she drove along the A499, one of Britain's most dangerous roads. She held a mirror in her left hand and an eye pencil in her right, leaving the steering wheel to itself. Wednesday, she was fined 200 pounds ($350) with 55 pounds costs and had six penalty points added to her driving license after admitting careless driving at Pwllheli magistrates court. "A car is a...

WOMEN drivers are dashboard dunces when it comes to recognising warning symbols in their cars. New research shows that one in two hasn't the foggiest idea of what some dashboard signs mean. Despite the average motorist spending 360 hours a year behind the wheel, as many as 42 per cent of motorists cannot identify common dashboard symbols, according to the poll by AA Personal Loans. Almost half of women and one third of men could not correctly identify symbols for frequently used functions or basic warning lights. Researchers asked 1,700 drivers to identify symbols such as the handbrake warning light,...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Take a few leggy California blondes, throw in a passion for luxury cars, plenty of parties, and a distaste for parking your own car. What have you got? A multimillion-dollar, female valet parking business, where struggling models and actresses dressed in bikinis, miniskirts or lingerie and Santa hats park the cars of the rich and famous in the Los Angeles area. Beverly Hills, California-based Girls Valet Parking opened for business less than six months ago. This week, it took over its rival, Valet Girls, and announced plans to expand to San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego...

Excerpts:Women car drivers -- someday.Terrible car drivers 26 December 2005 +++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 26 Dec.'05: "Women Driving a Family Issue, Says Sultan" Somayya Jabarti, Arab News - QUOTES FROM TEXT: "emphasized the government's readiness to open the way for women driving once they get consent from their families" " 'When fathers, husbands and brothers as us for women to drive we will look into it, but if they ask us the opposite we can't force them (to let women drive)' " " 'I believe strongly in the rights of women ,' the king had said" " 'How many times has...

One person was seriously injured after Lakeland police said an 89-year-old woman drove her car through a Winn-Dixie window at Harden Boulevard on Tuesday morning. Police said the woman, Blanche Garvin, was driving when she hit another car and a tree before hitting a man who was sitting outside the grocery store trying to raise money for charity. Police said the man's leg was severed in the accident. "The man was sitting there taking collections for his church at a little card table and it took his leg off," said witness Dwain Taylor. "His leg was like 10 or 15...

Even if a woman doesn't seem moody in the days before her period begins, chances are her brain is working differently, according to a new study. Researchers from Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York found that women with no apparent premenstrual syndrome mood changes may use parts of their brains differently over the course of their menstrual cycles. The findings are published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the brain imaging experiment, 12 women were shown printed words with either negative, neutral, or positive connotations. They performed behavioral tasks...

Dear Amy: A fellow motorist yelled profanities at me and called me a "Bimbo" because I delayed his morning commute by refusing to make a left turn across a stream of traffic. I seem to be a magnet for these automotive bullies. With some regularity, I am hollered at/abused/honked at/flipped off for such crimes as allowing a pedestrian to cross the street, slowing so that a driver in front of me can parallel park, or simply driving at the speed limit. What do I do about this, Amy? I know it is unsafe to confront the jerks, but meekly accepting...

The king of Saudi Arabia says women may eventually be allowed to drive in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia will fight the "madness" of Islamic terrorism for 30 years if necessary, but it will expand the rights of women and eventually allow them to drive, Saudi King Abdullah has told an American TV channel.

LOS ANGELES - A black Mercedes-Benz driven by actress Lindsay Lohan collided with a van on a West Hollywood street on Tuesday afternoon, according to television news reports and a witness who said he saw the crash. It wasn't immediately known if anybody was hurt. A reporter for the syndicated television show "The Insider" said she was filming a segment for her show in the city adjacent to Beverly Hills when she witnessed the accident at about 4:15 p.m. The Insider reporter, Victoria Recano, told The Associated Press she saw Lohan and a passenger from her car run into an...

It will likely go down in history as the most freakish, nightmarish accident in drag-racing history. One top drag-racing official with 40 years' experience told the media he'd never seen or heard of anything like it. On the first Saturday in April, Michelle "Shelly" Howard, a 59-year-old registered nurse and mother of three who had been drag-racing for 27 years, took her Top Alcohol Dragster for a 10 p.m. practice run at Tulsa Raceway Park as part of a late-night event. Howard, the wife of a Tulsa physician, had huge experience—she'd won the Division 4 title twice and was a...

Thanks To http://michaelsavage.com and http://spectator.org For The HeadsUp On This One. [I Hope I Don't Get Into The Trouble Rush Limbaugh Did When He Commented How The Media Falls In Love With Certain Genders And Ethnic Groups Just Because They Are Not Male WASPs] Although the male Indy drivers, and the press (which was spellbound over the 4th place finish for Danica Patrick) were too polite to mention it, Danica totalled two (COUNT THEM, TWO) Million Dollar+ Indy cars when she lost control of her vehicle. The two Indies belonged to the same team - Panther Racing - which had...

History will always give space to the courageous and rebellious. Should women be allowed to drive in this country one day, some credit should be given to the man who is now being fiercely attacked in the Saudi media and in cyberspace for raising the issue in the Shoura Council. A week after Dr. Muhammad Al-Zulfa told the press that he intended to present to the Shoura Council a paper with 18 points for discussion concerning women driving in the Kingdom, the attacks on him have not stopped. At Sunday’s Shoura Council session, there were an un-usually large number of...

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- An 81-year-old woman preparing to take a test drive at a car dealership hit her husband, a salesman, a car and a tree before running into a wall. "She must have panicked," said Joe Sica, sales manager at Honda of Fort Myers. The new Honda Accord shot backward after Dorothy Byrum got behind the wheel and apparently stepped on the wrong pedal Wednesday. The open car door hit her 88-year-old husband, Robert, and the salesman. Then the car struck the parked car, the tree and the wall. The air bag deployed, and Byrum was not injured....

(03-03) 13:12 PST Inkom, Idaho (AP) -- Torri Hutchinson's cat might just have one less life to live. Hutchison was driving along Interstate 15 one day recently when a motorist kept trying to get her attention and pointing to the roof of her car. She said she was wary of the man, but wondered if perhaps her ski rack might have come loose. She pulled over to the side, but kept her doors locked and the motor running. The man pulled up behind her. Hutchinson rolled down her window to hear the man frantically shouting, "Your cat! Your cat!" He...

British men are better drivers than women: top examiner LONDON (AFP) - The man in charge of driving test standards in Britain steered into controversy by claiming that men are better drivers than women. Photo AFP/File Photo In his role as chief examiner for the British government's Driving Standards Agency, Robin Cummins oversees 1.5 million driving tests each year -- and has concluded that male drivers display "more natural ability" than their female counterparts, according to The Sunday Times. "Overall it does seem to be that men can pick up the basic skills more quickly," Cummins was quoted as saying....

Map reading and parking may prove difficult for some women because they were exposed to too little testosterone in the womb, researchers suggest. The study, in the journal Intelligence, fuels the age-old male myth that women are deficient in these skills. Scientists from the University of Giessen, Germany, found a lack of the hormone affects spatial ability. Low testosterone levels are also linked to shorter wedding ring fingers, they say. The research looked at the spatial, numerical and verbal skills of 40 student volunteers. Spatial skill is the ability to assess and orientate shapes and spaces. Map reading and parking...

Three British soldiers, seriously hurt after claiming a US tank convoy ran them off a road in Iraq, have spoken for the first time about the incident. Cpl Jane McLaughlan, Staff Sgt James Rogerson and Cpl Stephen Smith, were left with horrific injuries when their Land Rover crashed in May 2003. They are suing the US Army for £1.2m in the first action of its kind involving coalition allies in the Iraq war. The trio say they have been let down by US allies in the war-torn country. The US Army claims no record of the incident, despite a British...

Laurie Squirrell Breaks Her Back Practicing for WMA Cup Laurie Squirrell, 16, the first female in England to be awarded expert status in motocross, broke her back in a high-speed crash as she practiced for her first professional race at Cycle Ranch MX in Texas. Laurie is said to have hit a wet patch where her bike flipped and hit her on the head and then did another flip on to her back. Laurie, who raced 125cc bikes, had taken a year out of studying to pursue her motocross career and was at the start of her “dream trip” to...

Saba Did the Right Thing, Say Many Somayya Jabarti, Arab News Staff   JEDDAH, 19 November 2003 — Out of ruins heroes rise — or heroines.Saba Abu Lisan, a young Saudi woman, rescued seven people, including her two sisters, after the Al-Muhaya Compound bombing in Riyadh on Nov.8 .Wounded and bleeding herself, she transported the victims to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in her father’s Mercedes. Her actions — a conflict between following human instinct and violating Saudi law — stirred a mixture of reactions.“There’s nothing to think about,” said Muhammad Haider, a Saudi father of four, when asked his...

HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) - Reverse parking is a bit of a problem and they're slower behind the wheel, but women are not quite as hapless at driving as many men think, according to a German study. In contrast, men under the age of 30 cause the most accidents, the survey for a German car magazine and insurers Axa found. Men in general are more aggressive behind the wheel, drive faster and take more risks, while women are nervy and take their time, respondents said. In the poll of 1,000 people, 27 percent of women admitted to problems with reverse parking...