Do the driving test figures prove women can't park as well as men? According to the Department for Transport, 1.6 million driving tests are taken each year. The DSA figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show that examiners recorded 1,660,206 errors by candidates that were serious enough to mean a failed test - 718,244 by men and 941,962 by women. The total number of errors exceeds the number of tests taken because many failed candidates made multiple mistakes. The data also reveal the errors that led each candidate to fail, and show a wide disparity between the sexes over parking. While 18,798 male candidates failed for lack of control during the dreaded reverse-park manoeuvre, the female figure was 40,863. Women were also more likely to fail for inadequate "observation" of road conditions during the parking test: 12,280 men committed that error, compared with 15,945 women. The DSA figures may be set against a recent claim that women were better at parking. A report based on covert surveillance of car parks suggested that while women may take longer to park, they were more likely to leave their vehicles neatly in the middle of a space. Despite the apparent disparity, the two results may not be inconsistent. Many instructors say that men find it easier to master the basic skills of driving required to pass, but are less likely to maintain such standards. Women may take longer to learn, but are less inclined to develop bad motoring habits. The DSA figures showed that there were some tests that men were more likely to fail. Many learners have the rubric "mirror-signal-manoeuvre" drummed into them, but some men still fail to get the message: more men than women failed because they did not check their mirrors before signalling, by a margin of 6,899 to 6,223. The most common cause of failure was observing - or perhaps not observing - junctions, which led to 201,175 people being disappointed. The rarest cause of failure was lack of knowledge of the Highway Code: a total of 59 candidates would have got their licence if only they had paid more attention to its contents. Estimates suggest that the average woman driver passes her test after 52 hours of teaching, compared with about 36 for men. Last year, DVLA figures disclosed that one unnamed London woman failed her driving theory test 90 times before finally getting through to the practical test. A man in the West Midlands had failed the practical 36 times.