I love this little newspaper story. It’s about women drivers: you know the stereotypes, women can’t drive and men won’t ask for directions?

Turns out that at least one of those points is correct: women really are bad drivers. But, umm, there’s a catch.

Men be warned: moaning to your wife while she is behind the wheel that women are terrible drivers will only make matters worse.

Research has found that women who are chided while driving are more than twice as likely to make mistakes as those who have no “constructive criticism” from their male passengers.

Even subtle admonishments, such as a man tutting while a woman carries out a manoeuvre, can lead to greater difficulties as the women get flustered or annoyed by the criticism.

Meanwhile, simply telling a woman that men make better drivers was enough to disturb their concentration and conform to the stereotype.

So it’s not in fact that women are worse drivers than men: it’s that men make women worse drivers by critiquing them.

No, not massively important, just thought it amusing for a Saturday afternoon: the day you are indeed likely to see man and woman in the same car, doing the weekly shopping chores.