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This is a complex question. 1. Article is mostly based on CHP community posts and comments. Their data is strongly skewed toward scary stuff (which is the only

This is a complex question. 1. Article is mostly based on CHP community posts and comments. Their data is strongly skewed toward scary stuff (which is the only type of content that is posted there) 2. There are several categories of horrible things that can happen to you, but mostly you can avoid them. However, sometimes you can't, and sometimes it's batshit crazy. For example, couple of months ago, some road crash with some heated argument happened in St. Petersburg. One of the participants of that argument died from five knife wounds to the chest. Investigative Committee alleged that (sic!) the man committed suicide (google Grigory Kochnev). You can't make this shit up. 3. Russians themselves are mostly fine, but corruption is on super-high levels and these people are not sent as alien agents from space. Saltykov-Shchedrin, great Russian satirist, wrote more than a hundred years ago: "If I were to doze off and re-awake in a hundred years and someone asked me what is happening in Russia, my answer would be unhesitating: people are drinking and stealing". 4. If you are to visit Russia as a tourist, you are reasonably safe. But I'd never advice anyone to open business in or relocate to Russia. Unless you want to deal with truly kafkaesque things every single day.

ryusage 14y ago
So is the article just picking out a few isolated incidents and painting a completely unrealistic picture of driving in Russia?
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  I realize that I'm just throwing more anecdotes into the "NOT DATA" bucket here, but the last time I visited Russia I was driven around by my grandfather and uncle. It was probably one of the most terrifying things I've ever experienced on the road, and I've had a tire blow-out in a Ford king-everything truck, as well as losing power-everything in the same truck, both times going 70+ mph on a highway.
  - ryusage 14y ago
    What specifically made the driving in Russia so terrifying? Was it the kind of things the article was talking about, or something else?
    - pavel_lishin 14y ago
      I never saw anyone trying to pull a scam, but my impressions - and this was about a decade ago - were of a Road Warrior type environment. The distinction between road and sidewalk was a mere suggestion, traffic signals were the equivalent of someone shushing you in a library, and lanes - what lanes?
- xentronium 14y ago
  It's not isolated, but it's not happening on everyday basis too. Anecdotally speaking, I haven't witnessed things in their "The Russian Dash-Cam Supercut" video even once. I can confirm that lots of people disregard rules if they think they can get away with it, though. Things like not lowering speed before the yield sign or going full speed through the crossing on yellow traffic light account for majority of the accidents involving two cars. Crossing the road in the wrong place causes most pedestrian deaths. Statistically speaking, we've got 3-5 times more fatalities than EU countries per capita and about 1.5-2 times more than in US, from what I've found. Some of these accidents happen due to weather and poor road maintenance, but you can't really blame the weather much, since the situation is much better in neighbor Finland.
  - lttlrck 14y ago
    'I can confirm that lots of people disregard rules if they think they can get away with it, though. Things like not lowering speed before the yield sign or going full speed through the crossing on yellow traffic light' Sounds like Boston...
gdy 14y ago
I can think of at least two retired guys from the UK who like living here in Russia.

ryusage 14y ago

So is the article just picking out a few isolated incidents and painting a completely unrealistic picture of driving in Russia?

pavel_lishin 14y ago
I realize that I'm just throwing more anecdotes into the "NOT DATA" bucket here, but the last time I visited Russia I was driven around by my grandfather and uncle. It was probably one of the most terrifying things I've ever experienced on the road, and I've had a tire blow-out in a Ford king-everything truck, as well as losing power-everything in the same truck, both times going 70+ mph on a highway.
- ryusage 14y ago
  What specifically made the driving in Russia so terrifying? Was it the kind of things the article was talking about, or something else?
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    I never saw anyone trying to pull a scam, but my impressions - and this was about a decade ago - were of a Road Warrior type environment. The distinction between road and sidewalk was a mere suggestion, traffic signals were the equivalent of someone shushing you in a library, and lanes - what lanes?
xentronium 14y ago
It's not isolated, but it's not happening on everyday basis too. Anecdotally speaking, I haven't witnessed things in their "The Russian Dash-Cam Supercut" video even once. I can confirm that lots of people disregard rules if they think they can get away with it, though. Things like not lowering speed before the yield sign or going full speed through the crossing on yellow traffic light account for majority of the accidents involving two cars. Crossing the road in the wrong place causes most pedestrian deaths. Statistically speaking, we've got 3-5 times more fatalities than EU countries per capita and about 1.5-2 times more than in US, from what I've found. Some of these accidents happen due to weather and poor road maintenance, but you can't really blame the weather much, since the situation is much better in neighbor Finland.
- lttlrck 14y ago
  'I can confirm that lots of people disregard rules if they think they can get away with it, though. Things like not lowering speed before the yield sign or going full speed through the crossing on yellow traffic light' Sounds like Boston...

gdy 14y ago

I can think of at least two retired guys from the UK who like living here in Russia.