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I feel like this is a case of "where I live, drivers are worst". I don't know anyone (except maybe the Germans) who would say that drivers in their country are

I feel like this is a case of "where I live, drivers are worst". I don't know anyone (except maybe the Germans) who would say that drivers in their country are the best drivers. (For the record, the Germans aren't the best either.) I live in the Netherlands and even in our bike infested cities, where you need to be on edge 100% of the time, people are playing with their phones in their manual cars all the time. Also, by your logic, French and Italian drivers should be really competent, but they're not. If anything, southern European drivers are less sensible than those in the northern countries, that tend to have more sensible, well-maintained roads. However, statistics make it seem that that is not the case. [0] 0: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190410STO36615/road-fatality-statistics-in-the-eu-infographic http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/2019...

anticodon 7y ago
No. Just about in any South Asian country drivers are orders of magnitude worse than in my country (Russia). The worst offender is probably India. Drivers there are insane. There's no better word for it.
- donkeyd 7y ago
  Oh, definitely. I was mostly answering this from a 'western' view. I visited Haiti and the only thing that really describes traffic there is anarchy.
- L_226 7y ago
  I would say this is also false, having driven in India (Maharashtra). It may appear that Indian traffic is anarchy, but there are definitely unwritten rules that most people follow, and native drivers are very aware of how to drive in India. I currently live in Germany, and I follow German road rules - which also happen to be the rules enforced by the state. Just because western style road rules are not being followed, doesn't mean that the drivers are not following any rules at all. /anecdote /opinion /disclamer etc
  - anticodon 7y ago
    I've driven in almost all states of India. It's not anarchy. It's anarchy mixed with total contempt towards your own life and life of others. You can see many times per day how they overpass other cars (sometimes even in 2-3 rows simultaneously: one car starts overpassing, then another starts overpassing first, then third..) just before a blind corner. You can witness several times per day how in the middle of the highway where average speed is about 100 km/h somebody may just make a U-turn without using indicators and passing the double solid line. You can ride 100 kmph on a highway and then suddenly there's a truck or a bus or a motorcycle on your lane coming into you because the driver decided that waiting 2km for the next place where he can make a u-turn is too long. If you drive even for one day in India you'll witness all these cases and more. Statistics of deaths on the roads incidentally confirms this.
sjwright 7y ago
> I feel like this is a case of "where I live, drivers are worst". If that's what you got from my post then I've failed in conveying my intent. If anything I think that the median Australian driver is among the best in the world. Perhaps even better than the UK, depending on the metric. The only problem is that we're rarely asked to think for ourselves—everything has already been thought about for us. Really the vast majority of drivers in every country I've visited have been similarly competent. The local variances mainly change the manifestation of badness in the remainder.

anticodon 7y ago

No. Just about in any South Asian country drivers are orders of magnitude worse than in my country (Russia). The worst offender is probably India. Drivers there are insane. There's no better word for it.

donkeyd 7y ago
Oh, definitely. I was mostly answering this from a 'western' view. I visited Haiti and the only thing that really describes traffic there is anarchy.
L_226 7y ago
I would say this is also false, having driven in India (Maharashtra). It may appear that Indian traffic is anarchy, but there are definitely unwritten rules that most people follow, and native drivers are very aware of how to drive in India. I currently live in Germany, and I follow German road rules - which also happen to be the rules enforced by the state. Just because western style road rules are not being followed, doesn't mean that the drivers are not following any rules at all. /anecdote /opinion /disclamer etc
- anticodon 7y ago
  I've driven in almost all states of India. It's not anarchy. It's anarchy mixed with total contempt towards your own life and life of others. You can see many times per day how they overpass other cars (sometimes even in 2-3 rows simultaneously: one car starts overpassing, then another starts overpassing first, then third..) just before a blind corner. You can witness several times per day how in the middle of the highway where average speed is about 100 km/h somebody may just make a U-turn without using indicators and passing the double solid line. You can ride 100 kmph on a highway and then suddenly there's a truck or a bus or a motorcycle on your lane coming into you because the driver decided that waiting 2km for the next place where he can make a u-turn is too long. If you drive even for one day in India you'll witness all these cases and more. Statistics of deaths on the roads incidentally confirms this.

sjwright 7y ago

> I feel like this is a case of "where I live, drivers are worst". If that's what you got from my post then I've failed in conveying my intent. If anything I think that the median Australian driver is among the best in the world. Perhaps even better than the UK, depending on the metric. The only problem is that we're rarely asked to think for ourselves—everything has already been thought about for us. Really the vast majority of drivers in every country I've visited have been similarly competent. The local variances mainly change the manifestation of badness in the remainder.