The chauvinist drives in Canberra?

is it just me, or am i in the wrong spot at the right time..?  but collecting astress from her place of work (west civic precinct is all i’ll say) of late i have noticed a phenomenon that i thought society divested itself of two or three decades ago.  

car pulls up; she waits.  he comes out of office – she gets out of driver’s seat, they kiss [or not] and he gets in the driver’s seat and she the passenger seat and off he drives.

what, she’s good enough to drive when he isn’t in the car, but when he’s in the vehicle only he can drive?  is this just a canberra phenomenon?  am i missing something?

for the record, astress has licence and drives as often, if not more, than i do; but i often pick up astromonkey, then astress and so simply keep one driver for continuity.  and also for the record, i have witnessed this above-described behaviour some dozen or so times in the past three or four collections but have not witnessed the inverse [ie, she drives home once collected by him].  also, for clarity, it has only once or twice been a ‘bloke’s car’, like a v8 beast thing – usually is nondescript, common marque…

any thoughts?  are you one of these collectees/ors??  please explain.