If you search on the web for who should drive, man or woman, or husband or wife. You get all sorts of answers.
But here is the correct answer. And it is a practical non-sexist answer.
If all other things being equal, the person who should drive is the person least sleep-deprived — be that the male or the female.
If I’ve learned anything from the book “The Promise of Sleep” by Dr. William Dement it is to never drive while sleep deprived. And he gives plenty of example of sleep-deprived drivers getting in terrible accidents (some even accidentally killing their passenger spouse).
He writes …
“If you remember nothing else from this book, you must remember these stories and the extremely important principle they are intended to illustrate.
The other thing I’ve learned in this book which may be surprising to some is — quoting from the front-flap cover —
“Healthful sleep has been empirically proven to be the single most important factor in predicting longevity, more influential than diet, exercise, or heredity.”
About 45% of Americans are sleep-deprived at least once in the past seven day, according to Sleep Health Index report quoting…
“Forty-five percent of Americans say that poor or insufficient sleep affected their daily activities at least once in the past seven days,”
If there are two person in a car, and one of them happens to be sleep-deprived, then, for safety reasons, the person who is not sleep-deprived should be the person driving.
But what if both person are sleep-deprived? In that case, determine who is least sleep-deprived. Or better yet, do not drive until both take a nap first. Or call the ride-share Uber or Lyft — hoping that its driver is not sleep deprived also. But perhaps some of this problem will be solved when Uber starts using self-driving cars.