BENGALURU: Presently, 15% of the motorists in the state are women. Over the past three years, 4.44 lakh new driving licences have been issued to women, as opposed to 23.37 lakh to men.
While there has been a rise in the number of women taking to driving over the past few years, it’s been a rather slow one. The number of women who received licences in the state has increased by 25.6% since 2014-15 compared to men (23%) during the same period.
However, the number of men with driving licences in the state is almost six times than that of women. Transport department records show that of 1.47 crore motorists in the state, 1.25 crore are men and 21.17 lakh are women.With 40% of the state’s women drivers registered in Bengaluru, the maximum number of licences were issued by RTOs in Bengaluru South (1.70 lakh) followed by Bengaluru West (1.39 lakh) and Bengaluru East (1.37 lakh).
A senior transport department official said there has been an increase in the number of women seeking driving licences in the last few years. Experts say the number of women taking driving licences in Bengaluru is high mainly because of the increase in the number of working women compared to other districts. Also, public transport in the city is expensive and irregular, forcing women to take private vehicles, they add.
Arpita K, a resident of Indiranagar, said: “BMTC buses are crowded and unreliable. It’s not safe to take cabs at night. So I recently bought a small car.” Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) R Hithendra said there are no differences in male and females in terms of traffic violations committed. “Most cases booked against women passengers are for not wearing helmet as well as drunken driving,” he said.
Some women complain that society is yet to accept them as capable drivers. “Some motorists, often youngsters, get some kind of pleasure by overtaking a vehicle driven by a woman,” said S Sneha, a resident of Koramangala.