Folks there were offering anecdotal evidence that certain ethnic groups are more prone to bad driving than others. Based on my own observations (and yes, my typical knee-jerk liberal leanings), I challenged those assumptions.* However, I did a search to find if there was any statistical basis for these claims.
I was able to find this link, which found that there are more injuries within certain groups because of their neglect of the use of safety belts. Interestingly, it did not address the subject ethnic groups in the above referenced thread. There was also a reference in the linked report to these groups having a greater tendency toward poverty, which may imply the inability to repair an automobile with faulty safety equipment. Further down was a link to a greater predilection to alcohol abuse, which led to more accidents. It really didn’t seem to get into anything other than fatal accidents. Those are, of course, important to the statistics but so are fender-benders which aren’t discussed. Your search skills may vary, but are probably better than mine.
I am curious to find out if there is a factual basis for the generalizations that we may hear, or is it a case of “the van is always at the corner” (because we never notice the van unless it is at the corner)? Do insurance companies document this kind of information, or are they allowed to?
*And then of course made my own generalizations. Not my finest hour, I’d say.
Insurance companies are allowed to “discriminate” for a lot of factors that would land bankers and real estate agents in the hoosgow without delay. The primary factors looked at are age, gender, marital status, and to an increasing degree, credit. Smoker/nonsmoker status is no longer considered for most auto insurers, but plays a huge role in life & health insurance.
If ethnicity played a predictable role in risk management you’d expect to see it as part of the insurance application. I believe it was actually removed in the 60s-70s, partly because of all that Rosa Parks business–you know Rosa? Poor Black woman who had to use public transportation because her car insurance rates were opressive? While I must plead guilty to issuing the occasional angry verbal citation for “DWO” (no, I’m not going to explain it if you don’t already know it!) the real answer to my aggravation, as well as to your question, lies in driving habits, which are reflected in your motor vehicle report; and driving experience, which is normally inferred by the issue date of your driver’s license.
Driving experience is another strong consideration for insurance rates. Typically if you’ve not had a Canadian or US driver’s license for at least 3 years, you’re gonna get raked for premium. ven if you’ve been driving the Autobahn for the last 35 years without incident, the German or International license is not recognized by most, if not ANY, US insurer.
I teach Defensive driving primarily to teens. You all know the “asians cant drive” bit.
well its not exactly true, my asian students can drive just fine…their parents on the other hand.
what I have found is that pretty much any parent from a non first world country is a poor to terrible driver, while kids with immigrant parents only make up 5-10% of my students they make up about 80% of my problem parents. parents who wont let their kids practice, teach them amazingly bad habits, force them to drive badly because thats the way they drive instead of what I am teaching…cause you know defensive driving habits are DANGEROUS.
dont know if that helps you or not but it may shed some light.
Let’s just say driving is not a group activity although it might seem as such.
Everybody shares a fixed set of rules. Collectivist cultures should be more likely to produce drivers who are not very good at dealing with aspects of driving that are not covered by the rules. Individualist cultures should be more likely to produce drivers who are not very good at following the rules strictly.
When a country is individualist-leaning like the US, people from collectivist cultures typically have trouble fitting in, and their driving styles may stick out like a sore thumb. They’re not necessarily “bad”, but for an american driver they can be annoying or even dangerous.
I honestly don’t think ethnicity has anything to do with it.
P.S. I just spent 25 minutes looking for a single research paper on the subject, but it seems that any car related studies of ethnicity or culture relate to traffic stops and retail negotiation rather than any kind of quantifiable measure of driving quality.
The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it just flat out doesn’t work. It’s totally non-scientific. It serves absolutely NO purpose in proving a theory right; all it does is fail to prove it wrong. THat just isn’t how it works.
I have a new upstairs neighbor. I live between her and the laundry room, below me. Very loud machines; my floor throbgs. I swear to god the woman does laundry 24 hours a day. So of course, every time I hear the wachine machine start up, and then I hear her on the stairs, I’m likey, “yup, that’s all she does, 24 hours a day.” But here’s the thing, I’m not likely to notice all the time she spends NOT doing laundry.
I’ve also notices the the sun moves in an arc from the east to the west, while the earth that I stand on stays still. There’s nothing that I’ve ever noticed that would in any way suggest that this is not how it works.
If all anyone has to “support” their claim is anecdotal evidence–Intelligent Design idiots, racists–it’s been my experience, anecdotally, that that’s probably evidence that they’re WRONG. (Insert irony smiley. But still, you know?)
Except that cuts both ways. A single or small number of primary research scientific studies don’t really prove anything either. You need some in depth analysis and thoughts as to why your hypothesis is true to make a reasonable argument.
I personally feel that collectivists(regardless of ethnicity) are shitty drivers (from my perspective, I’m a shitty driver from theirs, it’s all fair) because they exercise behaviors that are dangerous to me. It works both ways. I exercise behaviors that are dangerous to them.
These behaviors are hard to study. It’s not evident that they lead to an increase in accidents or tickets for anybody. More importantly is that every time I have a big near miss as a result of such behaviors, the alleged perpetrator would not have been involved in the accident.
Examples of what I consider collectivist driving behaviors:
Driving street speed on the onramp, merging onto the interstate, picking your lane, accelerating to proper speed.
Unnecessarily slowing down way below reasonable for any reason in the middle of the street.
Driving slow in the passing lane
Coming to a full stop at the end of a freeway onramp with no metering light.
I suspect that you are correct. Damn. I was hoping it was Orgasming…
I think your laundry example and my “van on the corner” example show the same thing; we pick up on certain things that fit our conceptions, and ignore those that do not. I had never heard of the Asian driving stereotype before until it came up in an episode of “The Office” last year; I must lead a sheltered life because most people seem to have heard it and believe it. I have never witnessed an Asian man or woman driving poorly before that (or since for that matter) which led me to wonder if it was true, or just a myth.
I put this in GQ because I was looking for factual and statistical information. Which seems to be hard to come by, and thank you **groman ** for spending the time. There is also a link above to anecdotal evidence.
:o Apologies, both for the triple post and for mis-speaking. Of course anecdotal evidence is factual. I meant to say that I created this thread for documented statistics. No insult was intended.
I wonder if it is a bit of a class thing, and like it or not, ethnicity breaks down across class lines to some extent. If you’re middle class or above, driving is like breathing, not something you give a lot of thought to. Most likely there have been at least 2 cars in your family since the day you were born, you’ve ridden in cars everywhere you go, perhaps dad let you sit on his knee and steer the family truckster, probably you had a video game console in your home with at least one driving game. Contrast that with first-generation immigrants or poor folks who have a walking or public transport background instead of the universal middle-class car culture, and maybe you get someone with a rather different driving style.
There’s also the possibility that different cultural or national driving rules come into play. For example, if you take someone from Japan who is accustomed to driving only on Sundays at a maximum speed limit of 36mph on the left side of the road of a two-lane highway, they’re going to get a bit flummoxed if you drop them in 12 lanes of 80mph traffic.
There’s also the possibility that I’m completely full of crap.
