The problem then is those who are going too fast and violating the law. No one who is following the law should feel compelled to get out of the way so others can violate the law.
Walloon, I respectfully, but ardently, disagree. In their zeal to keep others from breaking the law, they create a hazard. If they do not like the fact that everyone else is wrong and they’re the only ones who are right, they should entertain that sentiment from the right hand lane, so as to not get in the way of the faster moving traffic. In this case, their presence in that left hand lane, actually does violate one rule of the road: slower traffic stay right. The rule doesn’t say “slower than the speed limit.” It pertains to road and driving conditions. xo, C.
I once had a negative streotype that young, female, african-american were the absolute worst drivers. Any time I saw bad driving that’s who was behind the wheel where I live.
Only after opening my eyes did I realize that the area that I regularily drove had lots of young, female, african-american drivers. I must drive near a college that these girls commute to. Once I noticed the good drivers around me were these same girls did I realize that I was making the “stereotype” judgement that since I saw a couple drive bad, all must drive bad.
If you drive in N.Y. then N.Y. drivers are the worst, if you drive the gulf coast in Florida then senior citizens are the worst, if you drive in Alabama then southern drivers are the worst.
I would guess the OP observes this behavior in an area that probably recently has had an influx of Asians.
And how does this improve traffic safety to enable people to violate the speed limit?
As long as you’re considering all possible re-conceptualizations, why rule this one out ab initio, as a logical matter?
I’m not saying it’s true; just that it’s conceivable that different cultures place different values on public safety, or the rights of pedestrians (or, put differently, whose responsibility it is to make sure you don’t get hit crossing the road). I think it’s fair to say that in, for instance, parts of Latin America, drivers do indeed seem to be less considerate of pedestrians, cross-walks, etc. (or, to assume that pedestrians need to be prepared for everyone to be driving as if there were no traffic laws). That doesn’t mean L. Am. countries don’t have stronger senses of community in other respects, but IME it does seem to be a very non-communal, every man for himself enterprise to drive not only in poorer countries like Mexico, but even in better-off L. Am. environs.
Slight hijack, but who knows; maybe different cultural norms include different norms about what community standard for acceptable road-death rates are. Germany with its autobahn culture seems to be much more blase on this than the UK, for instance
(http://www.etsc.be/STATS5dec.pdf),
which you could fairly characterize as Germans culturally being “less considerate” of the interests of pedestrians/fellow motorists in not dying at the hands of their cars.
Yes, Huerta, you are right. As I reflected on Walloon’s approach to traffic, I realized that in my view, driving well is in part viewing yourself as part of the local driving community. That involves a number of associated values and behaviors. I, for one, am conscious of how my position on the road, in the lane, at the speed I’m moving, affects those directly behind me, as well as those considerably behind me, and sometimes even in front of me. I take my driving behavior to be in part a reflection of my sense of responsibility for the rest of the people on the road. Walloon, on the other hand, has a different take on how to make the roads safer. I don’t agree with him, as seen above, but that disagreement relates in some measure to our view of our roles as drivers. And that view emerges from some deeper view of our roles in a community, I think. And maybe, as you posit, individuals who are raised in Asian homes are raised with a different set of values regarding community, our roles within communities, the nature of our responsibilities, etc. That, I think, is the type of cultural interpretation that I’m seeking. Maybe not the correct one, but the correct notion. Thank you.
Let’s take another look at that map:
Left: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ceylon, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan.
Right: Every place else, including Oman, U.A.E., Bahrain, Quatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Khazakhstan, China, Mongolia, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Philliphines, North Korea, and South Korea.
The map is small, so I might have missed some on either side, but it’s fairly clear that right-hand drive is used in most Asian countries.
I think your definition of bad driving is “interesting.” To me, bad driving is driving that results in accidents. It sounds like your definition of bad driving is primarily driving more slowly than other motorists. Kind of like your acknowledgement of Walloon’s point.
(insert pointless, circular argument here whether accidents resulting from slower drivers are the fault of the slow driver or the speeder who refuses to slow down. then move said argument to the Pit.)
So if you aren’t rid of the stereotype yet, you could rephrase it to slow driving rather than bad driving. That is still a stereotype, may even be a valid pattern, but less negative/judgmental in tone.
Ok - here’s an operational definition of bad driver from my point of view - one whose driving tends to obstruct the flow of traffic, or one whose direction changes, lane swerves or turns tend to present hazards to other people in the driving vicinity. This is, admittedly, a somewhat narrow definition of “bad driving.” It does not include people who speed, for example. As an aside, however, speeding, per se, is not a hazard. It only becomes a hazard when it interferes with others who are driving. None the less, I am trying to take Harriet’s suggestion to heart. I still contend - even as I have begun a new round of data collection - that a high percentage of the bad drivers I see are Asian. A higher percentage than would be accounted for simply by referring to the percentage of Asian drivers in the general driving population in my city. I will also, however, attempt to correlate the numbers I get with the neighborhoods I am driving in. Some neighborhoods in the area (Chicago) have higher densities of Asians than others, which would raise the number of bad as well as good Asian drivers one sees. Thanks for the reasoned input, dopers. Is this a great BBS or what?
Women aren’t perceived as worse drivers; women are worse drivers. They get in more accidents per mile driven than men. The reason they are given lower insurance rates is because men drive 75% more than women do, so men get in more accidents per year.
I can’t imagine it has anything to do with the length of their hair. My opinion is that because women are so much better than men at multitasking, they have difficulty focusing on a single task without distraction. Thus, in general, men are more focused on driving, while women may find their mind wandering.
I had this problem for about 6 months a couple of years ago. I started to notice that ever time a driver pissed me off, it was someone Asian.
It just started out one day I noticed an annoying driver was Asian and I thought something along the lines of “Ha Ha. So the rumour is true.” I did the same thing a few times. I thought about whether or not it was likely that Asians were actually worse drivers and whether maybe it was because they drive imports and it costs more to insure them so they are too paranoid that they will get in a fender bender and it cramps their style. I guess I got that from the fact that the one guy I actually know who is Asian and a bad driver is ultraparanoid that his insurance will go up. But it was such a half baked theory that I didn’t give it much credit and I thought it must just be a coincidence and that maybe it was the fact that when non Asian drivers annoyed me my brain had nothing to say about it so only the bad Asian drivers got emphasized in my perception. Then I sort of lost interest. Then I got on a kick where I was convinced that it was always young males who were the worst drivers. Probably because I stopped driving around in traffic in an Asian area and started taking the highway to work.
It’s weird that your version of Asians being bad drivers is that they don’t look when they change lanes because mine was that they did not change lanes fast enough and were too timid. It goes to show how little sense there is behind it. I am really convinced that if the idea wasn’t already out there that it would not have gotten stuck in your head.
The way I think about it, it’s natural to look for patterns but it’s stupid to take them seriously. Even if you’ve really found one, the information is useless to you. If you’re conscious that it’s worthless to think about, why are you still thinking about it?
What I would do is preoccupy yourself with hating a string of different types of drivers. Get really specific about it. The more specific you are, the more entertaining and stress relieving it is. Did you ever notice that when you see a burning cigarette fly out of a vehicle it is a white van? Or did you ever notice that the cars that get off at the racetrack are always going too slow and weaving? After you start to notice these things, it gets easier to dismiss them because you can find a pattern for just about everything.
You ever see on the nature shows where a herd of something has a stamped and the some of the slower runners get trampled? Same idea.
I’m not advocating speeding, but anything that decreases the likelihood of tailgating, passing on the right, and road rage does indeed improve traffic safety. It is unsafe for you to try to act as a traffic control device because the reactions you elicit from impatient drivers (i.e. speeders) are likely to endanger you and other law-abiding drivers.
I’m not saying it’s right for people to speed, but it’s not worth your life to challenge those who do.
Actually, I think you are trying to confront your generalizations not about Asian drivers, but about *bad *drivers. I don’t mean to be playing petty semantics, but stereotypes are built through language, after all. Even if most of the bad drivers you see are Asian, it is not reasonable to generalize from this that Asians in general are bad/worse drivers.
Also, even if it turns out that your empirical “research” backs up your observations to date, coming up with a cultural explanation will be difficult for a number of reasons, including:
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Differences between Asian immigrants and born-in-the-USA Asian-Americans. They grew up in vastly different sociocultural environments and can hardly be lumped together into a single category of “Asian”!
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Differences among the various Asian countries. Japan is not Vietnam, and it would be a stretch of the imagination to think there’s an underlying cultural unity between the two that results in Japanese and Vietnamese having a shared culture of driving. (Buddhist driving culture?) Not impossible, but a stretch.
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Differences among people within a single Asian country in terms of class, educational background, region, religion, ethnicity, etc. Even the most racially/ethnically homogeneous of countries is diverse in many other ways.
In short, insofar as you can judge the bad drivers you see to be “Asian,” there are still lots of different *ways *that they might be Asian. There’s no one cultural intrepretation that’s going to fit them all. To explain the bad-driving phenomenon in cultural terms, you’ll need to entertain numerous cultural interpretations at the same time.
I don’t mean to say there’s no point in cultural intrepration here. Quite the contrary, I think it forces you to look more closely at the people you’re intrepreting and to acknowledge the differences among them. And that, I think, is a way to avoid stereotyping them.
Well, if this isn’t the most bass-ackwards definition I’ve ever seen. I’d say that the problem is not the slow drivers, but those tailgaters, right-passers, and road ragers. Here’s a suggestion – take another look at your definition of bad driving.
My definition of bad driving is aggressive drivers who speed, tailgate, pass on the right, make sudden lane changes without signaling, refuse to make room for cars trying to change lanes, swerve from lane to lane in heavy traffic, etc. Someone help me from noticing that the vast majority of these drivers are white guys in SUVs and pickup trucks.
Frankly, I think the OP’s problem is that he notices the race of the drivers who piss him off. Try not to do that.
We are hard wired to make generalizations based on patterns, that can not be helped. What can be helped is the emotions you feel because of the generalizations. There is a theory of emotions called the ABC theory. A is the external trigger, B is the thoughts of the individual, and C is the emotions. In this case A would be the bad Asian drivers, and C is the frustration with them as being inconsiderate. B is what you have to change. Instead of thinking about how you have been inconvencied by the bad driving, try to replace that with compassion. The bad driving you described seems to come from overcaution and fear. Try thinking “Those poor people, they have come to a new country and left all that is familiar behind them to make a better life for their children, They are not used to the fast pace of the driving here and are scared, I hope they make it safely to their destination.” It will take some effort on your part, but try to think of something in your life that causes anxiety. Then think “Driving to that person is like, public speaking is to me”