One thing that always strikes me when I visit a Third World country is how aggressive the drivers are. People who own cars feel rich and powerful. They assume that pedestrians are poor worthless members of society whose job is to get out of their way (or die across their hoods; whatever). Egyptian families near my sister’s house in Cairo would have 7 or 8 kids, let them play in the street, and not be too surprised when one got run over by the maniacal, yet not skilled, local drivers.
The European Middle Ages seem to have been a similar period as far as transportation was concerned. The nobles would ride horses and kick the peasantry into the mud by the side of the road. Being on a horse made a man feel that he was superior, hence the expression “Come down off your high horse.”
The U.S. used to be different. Drivers stopped for pedestrians and yielded to each other. Behind the wheel of a car, it wasn’t necessarily correct to assume that you were more privileged than a pedestrian. He might have been walking back to his brand-new Cadillac, after all.
Today Alex and I were nearly run over by a yuppie woman in the largest Lexus sedan. She was gunning her massive V8 engine at 45 mph down a Cambridge side street. I remembered the aggressive SUV drivers on the way back from Maine. If you drive a 2000 lb. Toyota Echo (one of the emblems of Robin Williams’s loserhood in the fabulously art-directed movie One Hour Photo), you really need to drive defensively so that you don’t get flattened by a 6000 lb. SUV or a 4500 lb. luxury car. But if you drive one of the largest cars on the road, strapped inside a steel cage with a seat belt and protected by air bags, you might not feel the need to pay attention to other cars. If you can afford to spend $50,000+ on a car, plus whatever gasoline you require at 12 mpg, perhaps you would come to think of those on foot as not worthy to get in your way.
Thoughts anyone? Is the U.S. going to become more like Egypt in terms of driving?
“Is the U.S. going to become more like Egypt in terms of driving”
Sorry to say, I don’t think the U.S. is going to – it already is that way. I work from home and as I occasionally go out to run an errand during the day I’m struck by the increasing lack of social skills in other drivers to pedestrians and and fellow drivers alike.
I was taught by my father that driving is a privilege, not a right, and the only way to expect courtesy of other drivers is to be a courteous driver.
In the past year, I have almost been struck by a car while walking in the crosswalk more than 10 times, each time walking at the walk signal or waiting for a break when in a crosswalk not at a light. One ‘gentleman’, after almost hitting me, had the gall to stop in the middle of the road, get out of his car, run back to me and berate me for walking in the crosswalk. I can only assume that he was upset at missing me and wanted another chance.
I think that you might also be taking your Boston area experiences and extrapolating across the country. I was recently in China, where the wrong way down a divided highway or entrance ramp was fine if it’ll save you a quarter mile and a U-turn, people were running across a 4 lane divided highway rather than climbing the stairs to the nice pedestrian bridge above them, turning left was a matter of will and fear, and the horn was more important than the brake or courtesy.
(It occurred to me while writing this that the latter well describes my experiences last time I was in Boston…).
The next week I was in New York, where many of the same rules applied, I saw people head the wrong way down one way streets to get into alleys, taxis risked bent sheet metal all the time, lots of driving in the breakdown lane, and when I got back to civilization, aka San Francisco, I was struck at how both China and New York City had much of the same arrogance and sense of self-importance in driver behavior.
I think the real answer is that on the continuum between backwards countries with little regard for human life and the enlightened cooperation which leads to strong economic growth, Manhattan and much of the east coast tend towards the former. (Ow. Sorry.)
I don’t think the whole U.S. is going to become like egypt
when it comes to driving.
I think it’s just a matter of population density and everyone
wanting to drive their cars in a dense area. If you go to less
populated areas it’s not a bad drive at all in many places around
the U.S. However as you get more and more people in a small
place people start getting much more frantic when they drive.
I really don’t know what is up with people AROUND Boston. Perhaps
there’s just too many SUV/luxury car owners talking on their cel
phones and are more concentrated on anything except the road
they are driving on. I know I’ve gritted many times getting cut off
by people like that. However, I can also say that pedestrians/bikers
aren’t exactly innocent bystanders. I saw some biker plow
straight through a light that turned red and make a LEFT turn
at an intersection and almost got flattened by a car that
rightfully decided to hit the accelerator until he saw the biker
cut in front of him without a care in the world and go on.
Speaking from experience of riding a motorbike in a few countries around the world, the US would definitely make my “scariest-top-3” list. In poorer countries drivers might be unskilled and overcome by delusions of their own might, but at least they are paying some minimal attention to what is going on around them.
In the US drivers seem to take operating their vehicles as a right, and other things on the road such as lanes, stop signs, lights, other motorists etc as an obstruction of that right. It doesn’t help that non-highway traffic is usually arranged so as to impede one’s progress in a most frustrating way. Come on, who needs FOUR stop signs at any friggin intesection?
As Philip can attest, Costa Rica circa 1995 was pretty typical of developing countries. I don’t know what a booming Intel economy has done for San Jose.
Pakistan was interesting. The streets of Karachi were amazingly crowded, but I saw surprisingly few accidents. To me, it was total chaos, but to locals, I think they see the organization and rules that I cannot. I was in the back of one of those 3-wheel motorcycle-taxis, and we got shoved to the curb by a jeep once. My driver didn’t even flinch or get ticked off. There were major intersections, totally uncontrolled, but somehow the dense traffic would all slow and stop at the same time, allowing the cross street traffic to flow for a while.
After a couple of days, I wasn’t even concerned about it all.
When you mentioned 6000lb SUVs I couldn’t help but think of “A Nice Morning Drive” by Richard S. Foster.
http://members.aol.com/redbarche/ANiceMorningDrive.html
I sold my little red sports car but I don’t feel powerless now. I feel more liberated. When my wife and I vacationed in Aruba, one of the locals chatted me up at the grocery store and gave me some driving tips. Apparently tourists tend to show up, rent a car, and then violate all the traffic rules because they’re (a) clueless about how the traffic laws differ there and (b) on vacation.
I propose that automatic transmissions be outlawed. That would force people to reconnect to their automobiles and to the visceral act of driving. Anyone who cannot drive a manual transmission has to ride the bus.
In the third world countries I’ve been to I’ve been pretty impressed with the skill and patience of everyone on the road. In Nepal for instance, waterbuffalo, motorcycles (and every permutation thereof), bikes, dogs, and people (of all ages, limb number, and dexterity), all swarm the roads. The roads are often washed out or unpaved, and navigation is undertaken without the benefit of signs, lights, paved roads, retaining barriers, medians, turn signals, or drivers-ed.
Many of the trucks bear the sign “Horn Please”, and having traveled as a bicyclist, vehicle rider and walker, I can attest to both the prominence and effectiveness of this navigation tool. It’s a great warning device really, a truck will beep his horn before passing a bicyclist, for instance, which is good, because as a rider the noise and the dust and the goings on, dulls the sensory mechanisms you depend on for safety. I’ve experienced the same in other countries, where whatever vehicle (boat, jeeplike thing, bus) is available is often a “classic” vintage, and break-downs occur frequently due to building-sized pot-holes, boulders, and various road or river aberrations. Drivers are often committed to replace engines, axels and whatever else. In one case a boat helmsman stripped to his underwear and fixed a shorn off propeller with an impressive repertoire of scuba diving/mechanical skills.
Albeit it’s NOT to say limbs and lives aren’t lost, (and most traveling deaths are due to car accidents), but I imagine all this breakage (which extends to the rest of life) can foster a certain patience. South America and Africa drivers were a bit less dependable, but all and all I think they take care of their passengers and I generally felt no less safe, aside from the lack of seatbelts, then I do in the US.
In Seattle we have 4 way stops, so whoever gets to the intersection first gets to go. If its a 6 way intersection you have to be on your toes to keep track of whose turn it is (helps to have a passenger). When I first moved here from Boston, where this system would lead to complete anarchy, I was amazed at the politeness of it all. If two vehicles arrived to the intersection at the same time, one driver would wave to the car across the intersection, “you go”, then they would wave back; “No, you go”. It’s a bit off-putting, you may think everyone’s all nicey-nicey here but it belies a sort of community-wide passive agressive streak. I’m not advocating this traffic mechanism for efficiency, though I do think 4 way stops are slightly more civilized then the rotaries.
If you want to see crazy driving try Montreal. I was driving in a FUNERAL PROCESSION and we could not keep up with the cars or the hearse in front of us. What’s the bloody hurry to get to a cemetary? I felt like I was driving in the Mortuary 500. There were a lot of
“out of towners” who were driving and yet they still took us on many different freeways and through parts of town where we had no idea where we were going.
In Toronto atleast, you have a police ecort, there’s a “Funera”l sign on your car, you drive slow and you have your flashers on because you’re allowed to run red lights. I’m pretty sure my Montreal relative was laughing hysterically if she was watching from “upstairs”.
There is definitely a divide between East Coast and West Coast cities as others have mentioned. Not sure its a economic thing, my impression is that the “respect” that West Coast drivers show for pedestrians really stems from fear. They aren’t used to encountering people on the street and get nervous about hitting them. Drivers in NYC or Boston are accustomed to pedestrians and are more concerned with getting to their destination in time. And yeah the SUV really does make people more aggressive, less oxygen in the air up there or something… Having AC, a nice stereo and a sound proof luxury car probably makes people less concerned about those on the sidewalk as well…
I don’t buy this “western US drivers are more considerate” theory. I live in San Francisco and I have never seen a city where drivers run red lights as casually as here. Just this morning, I was almost struck by a taxi that ran a red light a full second after it turned red.
> I live in San Francisco and I have never seen a city where drivers run red lights as casually as here.
Fazal, go to Italy, Naples area. If you’re driving, at night it is downright dangerous to stop at red lights there. You might be rear-ended by a commuter bus or garbage collection truck. Passenger car drivers usually take an effort to swerve around you at the last possible second, though…
Phil, what about Italy? Is there a huge wealth gap there too?
Quite frankly, you are seeing the idiocy of Massholes and extrapolating to the country at large. Here in PA we have to watch out for 78-year-olds in Buicks and 19-year-olds in beatup Ford pickups, but that is about it. Could be population density, could be residual Teutonic “ordnung”.
Alexei, I’m not sure about third world drivers being “unskilled”. In China and Hong Kong I rode with people who spent a good part of their day driving people who worked for our various companies around. They had incredible reflexes and amazing judgement that I can only attribute to lots and lots of practice and staying current. The main reason it was scary (besides the potential of actually using airbags) was simply that my wussy western U.S. responses weren’t honed to take in that many objects at that many relative velocities in that small a space. The point isn’t necessarily that they’re worse drivers, they may actually be better drivers, they’re just pushing the limits much harder.
Dan, the problem with a majority of drivers in fast-developing countries is that their average experience behind the wheel is negligible. Most of them got rich enough to afford a car only very recently. Instead of a leisurely gradual learning afforded by typical US traffic they are having a crash course in urban survival, endangering themselves and others.
The professional drivers are completely different species. I live in Moscow, Russia. The infrastructure of the city was designed to cope with 800000 cars maximum. Now there are close to 4 million of them, and traffic is hell. The company I worked for used former ambulance drivers, and their utter calm, quickness and smoothness never ceased to amaze me.
rich people drive like maniacs because money will solve their problems. poor people drive like maniacs because they have nothing to lose.
in both houston and austin, we always noticed the worst, most inconsiderate drivers have the most expensive cars and were in the most expensive neighborhoods. maybe the shopping bags are under their feet in the floorboard, maybe the tiny cell phones are too hard to handle.
there is a difference between “super duper rich” and “kind of rich”. kind of rich people have something to prove — they hold the small bit of money they have over the heads of everyone else. i call it the lexus syndrome. if you run into a bad driver (har), they are probably driving a lexus. lexus owners have just enough money to flaunt, but not enough money to be secure with their egos.
Shoes Repair