I thought you were crying like a fourteen-year-old, ogged.
In all seriousness, it's really interesting to see our condemnation-responses vary out of synch with the factors that actually contribute to danger. Driving while tired is the obvious case, I guess.
Right. But we're not really mad because of the danger; we're mad at the inconvenience, and because we hate the behavior even apart from driving, and because we get really annoyed at inconsiderate things that, unlike aging, people do voluntarily.
i'm aging voluntarily. well, willingly. though i was told recently that i have the cholesterol levels of a 25 year old vegetarian. i wasn't given her name.
anyway, whatever age, it's about paying attention and knowing your skills and limits. most people i know lose on both of those.
I've never had my cholesterol checked and am sorta kinda refusing to on the grounds that what I don't know can't hurt me. Right up until the massive coronary, that is.
it's about paying attention and knowing your skills and limits
This is really true. Bad drivers come in all ages and types, and plenty of older drivers are fine drivers. (Well, except for Asians, who are all bad drivers, every single one. I will not be dissuaded on this point.)
Apo, I'm a little worried about cholesterol myself, given my red meat twice a day diet. Probably going for a physical soon. I'll get back to you.
Well, except for Asians, who are all bad drivers, every single one. I will not be dissuaded on this point.
I know I'm probably going to lose my liberal membership card with this comment, but why is this so completely, observably true? Is it some cosmic compensation for the enhanced mathematics and gymnastics abilities?
I used to have lunch with a co-worker who'd watch me put hot sauce on my food, then put five times as much on his, while saying, "Sissy Boy!" But he wasn't kidding.
I live in Japan and have visited both Thailand and China. It's true, true, true. In China, one of the locals with whom I talked said that the Chinese treat drivign laws as suggestions. People in Japan tend to be very law-abiding -- at parades, they will lay down a blanket, their camera, and a purse to hold a spot, then go off for food without fear of anything being stolen; at the malls, people leave their cars running while they shop -- but as soon as they get around a road, there is no respect for even driving suggestions. And this goes beyond driving, which is bad. Kids will pile two or three onto bikes and then ride against traffic. In the north, where I live, there is very little effort to clean the roads of snow and ice. From January until Marcch everyone basically drives on a two-inch slab of ice. There are no street lights. And yet, you have suicidal little old ladies darting into traffic without any warning. Their tough, I'll grant that, four and half feet tall, bent into hooks from osteoporosis, walking on the ice with rubber boots and carrying bags of stuff. But suicidal. There are no seatbelt laws, and little kids will be climbing all over the place while cars are driving.
They do use their turn signals and warning lights here. Everytime. (Which is good, because it's common for cars just to stop in the middle of the road while the driver goes to buy smokes, eat a meal, whatever.)
And the really weird thing. It's hard to get a licence here. You have to pay thousands of dollars and go to a school befor eyou can even get tested.
It's interesting that you have that impression, because I commute through Tokyo traffic on my motorcycle every day, and my impression is that the average skill level is far above the American average. I split lanes and weave through traffic in ways I would never dare in an American city because the majority of drivers are a) paying attention and aware that bikes might be there, b) able to drive in a stright line, and c) passably considerate of other drivers, none of which I believe to be true of the majority of Americans. (Of course, I'm sure the driving skills of everyone posting here are above average;)
I think this is largely because the traffic density and lane width require skill so those who aren't skilled are afraid to drive, whereas in the US one can weave around and still stay in one's lane.
Granted, when I do drive in the States, I find that the worst drivers I notice tend to be either Asian, elderly, on a cell phone, or in a Benz.
If we're going to keep up Unfogged's reputation as "America's #1 Blue-State Online Fraternity," then when someone writes "Racist," the obligatory response is, "Racy? W'ots wrong with being racy?" At which point, conversation may either continue, or devolve into a pointless discussion about (a) the best lines in Spinal Tap, or (b) the funniest Spinal Tap songs.
Which makes me wonder: (a) do the (male) kids today still quote Fletch and Caddyshack, and (b) how well do people think they could date someone by use of the movie lines they quote.
Now that the politically incorrect cat has been thoroughly let loose from his bag, here's an awful joke/story that manages to ramp up the innapropriateness an extra notch:
There was a dumbass disk jocky on Boston radio in the late 80s (WBCN, I believe) who used to complain about people being DWO: Driving While Oriental
Despite my best efforts, I would laugh every time.
I tried to think of a clever double-entendre to begin the post so as to maintain the frat party atmosphere, but failed even to think of a single-entendre. Sorry. If this means I'm eighty-sixed, let me get this in first --
Big Ben,
I concede that the Japanese drivers here in Aomori prefecture can judge distances far better than Americans, although part of that may just be Americans have trouble since they've learned to drive on the right side of the road while in the left hand seat, the opposite of what's standard here. But, I'm not sure of that makes them better drivers. When I lived in Philadelphia, I saw a guy waiting at a red light to make a left turn. He was three cars deep. Apparently, he was also bored with waiting, so against the red light he got out of his lane, looped in front of the cars ahead of him, and made the left turn. That took moxie. It took good hiand-eye coordination. But, I would not call him a _good_ driver. Perhaps this is a different kind of bad, but I still think it counts as bad driving. I was not surprised when I was in Kyoto and learned that there was a shrine dedicated to oprhans of parents died in car crashes, and a charity that supported them.
Dave, I think you're in the UK, and your question raises a question: In the US, "Asian" usually means far-eastern, which, let's not kid around, really means the slanty-eyed people. So while Iran is indeed in Asia, you never hear Iranians referred to as "Asians." Is it different where you are?
Not to treat this as a competition because I generally agree that Asian drivers are bad drivers but I'll stack up bad Italian drivers against bad Asian drivers any day of the week.
When I was vacationing in Italy this year, I ended up renting a car in Sicily. When I was at the counter to rent the car, I noticed that the insurance fees were three times the amount of the rental itself. Normally, when I rent a car with my AMEX card, the card covers insurance for the rental but just to make sure I called up AMEX to confirm that. When I called them they told me that yes they normally do cover the insurance for rentals when you use their card EXCEPT in three countries - some small latin american country that I can't remember, Jamaica, and of course Italy. And when I asked the lady at the counter whether it was necessary to get all this insurance she looked at me as if to say, "why don't you go next door, they like renting to crazy people over there."
The clincher though was when I was in Italy with my brother last year. People who have been passengers in my brother's car almost universally make the comment that he drives like a taxi driver. But when we were in Italy, I flipped him the keys to the car so he could drive and he flipped them back to me saying, "No thanks." When I asked him why, he said that he was scared.
Ok, not a competition, but let the record show, I've been to Italy, and even had some close calls there while being driven around, but Italy is a country of Swiss grandmothers compared to Iran. I really can't describe how bad and different traffic in Iran is. I tell people to imagine driving without using your brakes, and imagine that no one else can use theirs. Here's how one writer for Outside described it.
LET'S SAY YOUR MOTHER HAS SUFFERED a terrible accident—it doesn't matter what—and she is bleeding to death in the backseat of your car. The hospital is a 30-minute drive away. The streets are wide, two or three lanes in either direction, and they are filled sidewalk-to-sidewalk with slowly moving cars. It is the worst traffic jam you have ever seen in your life. Your mother has ten minutes to live. How will you negotiate these gridlocked streets as your mother's eyes dull and death steals up on her?
That's how everyone in Iran drives, all the time.
Tehran's traffic is the most terrifying in the world, and simply crossing the street is an exercise in daring and judgment involving several very real life-and-death decisions all happening more or less instantaneously. Urban planning doesn't exist: There are no underpasses or overpasses or pedestrian crossings. You just stroll out into the street and move into the laneless chaos of oncoming cars. Sometimes pedestrians gather along the sidewalk—it doesn't have to be at a crossing—and then, as if on cue, they move boldly into traffic, 20 or 30 people at a time, challenging death as drivers attempt to intimidate their way through the herd.
Abbas grabbed my arm and maneuvered me into the rush of cars. It was the most frightening thing I did the entire time I was in Iran: cross the street.
Ogged - that's almost enough to get me to stipulate that Teheran has worse drivers than Boston, Nashville or Montreal. Almost... (And I learned to drive in Brooklyn.)
Aren't you 31 or 32?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 3:38 PM
I'm not 20, if that's what you're getting at. My real age, as befits a superhero-underwear blogger, is top secret.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 3:43 PM
And I was told, post wisdom-tooth extraction, that I was "healing like a fourteen year-old."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 3:44 PM
I'm still waiting for the instutition of a test that measures one's default driving ability in terms of blood alcohol content equivalence.
The way I see it, at least 50% of the people on the road are driving at about a .08 on their best day.
Therefore, they should give out some sort of card that allows the rest of us to have a couple beers in peace.
Also, we should be able to smoke crack.
Posted by rufus | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 3:47 PM
It's can't be long before "B to the C" is out.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 3:49 PM
I thought you were crying like a fourteen-year-old, ogged.
In all seriousness, it's really interesting to see our condemnation-responses vary out of synch with the factors that actually contribute to danger. Driving while tired is the obvious case, I guess.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 3:56 PM
Right. But we're not really mad because of the danger; we're mad at the inconvenience, and because we hate the behavior even apart from driving, and because we get really annoyed at inconsiderate things that, unlike aging, people do voluntarily.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:01 PM
i'm aging voluntarily. well, willingly. though i was told recently that i have the cholesterol levels of a 25 year old vegetarian. i wasn't given her name.
anyway, whatever age, it's about paying attention and knowing your skills and limits. most people i know lose on both of those.
Posted by kim | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:28 PM
I've never had my cholesterol checked and am sorta kinda refusing to on the grounds that what I don't know can't hurt me. Right up until the massive coronary, that is.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:32 PM
it's about paying attention and knowing your skills and limits
This is really true. Bad drivers come in all ages and types, and plenty of older drivers are fine drivers. (Well, except for Asians, who are all bad drivers, every single one. I will not be dissuaded on this point.)
Apo, I'm a little worried about cholesterol myself, given my red meat twice a day diet. Probably going for a physical soon. I'll get back to you.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:33 PM
given my red meat twice a day diet
Pussy. I have red meat twice a meal.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:36 PM
Well, except for Asians, who are all bad drivers, every single one. I will not be dissuaded on this point.
I know I'm probably going to lose my liberal membership card with this comment, but why is this so completely, observably true? Is it some cosmic compensation for the enhanced mathematics and gymnastics abilities?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:38 PM
enhanced mathematics and gymnastics abilities
Racist.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:39 PM
Rhymes with facist.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:41 PM
Pussy. I have red meat twice a meal.
I used to have lunch with a co-worker who'd watch me put hot sauce on my food, then put five times as much on his, while saying, "Sissy Boy!" But he wasn't kidding.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:42 PM
Actually, ogged, you revealed your age in the infamous Unfogged Chat Session (unless you were lying).
Plus, I don't see how "it's no dangerous than this other dangerous thing!" is much of an argument.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:47 PM
Yeah, and my friends and relatives know my age too, but it's top secret on the blog. Geez.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 4:49 PM
Ogged keeps secrets like a fourteen-year-old.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 5:01 PM
I live in Japan and have visited both Thailand and China. It's true, true, true. In China, one of the locals with whom I talked said that the Chinese treat drivign laws as suggestions. People in Japan tend to be very law-abiding -- at parades, they will lay down a blanket, their camera, and a purse to hold a spot, then go off for food without fear of anything being stolen; at the malls, people leave their cars running while they shop -- but as soon as they get around a road, there is no respect for even driving suggestions. And this goes beyond driving, which is bad. Kids will pile two or three onto bikes and then ride against traffic. In the north, where I live, there is very little effort to clean the roads of snow and ice. From January until Marcch everyone basically drives on a two-inch slab of ice. There are no street lights. And yet, you have suicidal little old ladies darting into traffic without any warning. Their tough, I'll grant that, four and half feet tall, bent into hooks from osteoporosis, walking on the ice with rubber boots and carrying bags of stuff. But suicidal. There are no seatbelt laws, and little kids will be climbing all over the place while cars are driving.
They do use their turn signals and warning lights here. Everytime. (Which is good, because it's common for cars just to stop in the middle of the road while the driver goes to buy smokes, eat a meal, whatever.)
And the really weird thing. It's hard to get a licence here. You have to pay thousands of dollars and go to a school befor eyou can even get tested.
Posted by jbbuhs | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 5:09 PM
Sorry. The above comment should have begun with this quote:
Well, except for Asians, who are all bad drivers, every single one. I will not be dissuaded on this point.
Posted by jbbuhs | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 5:11 PM
jbbuhs,
It's interesting that you have that impression, because I commute through Tokyo traffic on my motorcycle every day, and my impression is that the average skill level is far above the American average. I split lanes and weave through traffic in ways I would never dare in an American city because the majority of drivers are a) paying attention and aware that bikes might be there, b) able to drive in a stright line, and c) passably considerate of other drivers, none of which I believe to be true of the majority of Americans. (Of course, I'm sure the driving skills of everyone posting here are above average;)
I think this is largely because the traffic density and lane width require skill so those who aren't skilled are afraid to drive, whereas in the US one can weave around and still stay in one's lane.
Granted, when I do drive in the States, I find that the worst drivers I notice tend to be either Asian, elderly, on a cell phone, or in a Benz.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 5:25 PM
Kids, kids...
If we're going to keep up Unfogged's reputation as "America's #1 Blue-State Online Fraternity," then when someone writes "Racist," the obligatory response is, "Racy? W'ots wrong with being racy?" At which point, conversation may either continue, or devolve into a pointless discussion about (a) the best lines in Spinal Tap, or (b) the funniest Spinal Tap songs.
Which makes me wonder: (a) do the (male) kids today still quote Fletch and Caddyshack, and (b) how well do people think they could date someone by use of the movie lines they quote.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 6:06 PM
"Big Bottom" FUKKEN RULZ!!!1!
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 6:11 PM
Now that the politically incorrect cat has been thoroughly let loose from his bag, here's an awful joke/story that manages to ramp up the innapropriateness an extra notch:
There was a dumbass disk jocky on Boston radio in the late 80s (WBCN, I believe) who used to complain about people being DWO: Driving While Oriental
Despite my best efforts, I would laugh every time.
Posted by rufus | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 6:50 PM
I tried to think of a clever double-entendre to begin the post so as to maintain the frat party atmosphere, but failed even to think of a single-entendre. Sorry. If this means I'm eighty-sixed, let me get this in first --
Big Ben,
I concede that the Japanese drivers here in Aomori prefecture can judge distances far better than Americans, although part of that may just be Americans have trouble since they've learned to drive on the right side of the road while in the left hand seat, the opposite of what's standard here. But, I'm not sure of that makes them better drivers. When I lived in Philadelphia, I saw a guy waiting at a red light to make a left turn. He was three cars deep. Apparently, he was also bored with waiting, so against the red light he got out of his lane, looped in front of the cars ahead of him, and made the left turn. That took moxie. It took good hiand-eye coordination. But, I would not call him a _good_ driver. Perhaps this is a different kind of bad, but I still think it counts as bad driving. I was not surprised when I was in Kyoto and learned that there was a shrine dedicated to oprhans of parents died in car crashes, and a charity that supported them.
Posted by jbbuhs | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 6:56 PM
Rufus, we were posting at the same time. When Chris Rock was on "King of the Hill," he made the same joke.
Posted by jbbuhs | Link to this comment | 02- 1-05 6:58 PM
"Well, except for Asians, who are all bad drivers, every single one. I will not be dissuaded on this point."
In London the crap drivers are Nigerians and Orthodox Jews. Isn't Iran in Asia?
Posted by dave heasman | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 7:57 AM
Iran is in the Levant!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 8:02 AM
And the Hizzouse!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 8:14 AM
Dave, I think you're in the UK, and your question raises a question: In the US, "Asian" usually means far-eastern, which, let's not kid around, really means the slanty-eyed people. So while Iran is indeed in Asia, you never hear Iranians referred to as "Asians." Is it different where you are?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 8:58 AM
Not to treat this as a competition because I generally agree that Asian drivers are bad drivers but I'll stack up bad Italian drivers against bad Asian drivers any day of the week.
When I was vacationing in Italy this year, I ended up renting a car in Sicily. When I was at the counter to rent the car, I noticed that the insurance fees were three times the amount of the rental itself. Normally, when I rent a car with my AMEX card, the card covers insurance for the rental but just to make sure I called up AMEX to confirm that. When I called them they told me that yes they normally do cover the insurance for rentals when you use their card EXCEPT in three countries - some small latin american country that I can't remember, Jamaica, and of course Italy. And when I asked the lady at the counter whether it was necessary to get all this insurance she looked at me as if to say, "why don't you go next door, they like renting to crazy people over there."
The clincher though was when I was in Italy with my brother last year. People who have been passengers in my brother's car almost universally make the comment that he drives like a taxi driver. But when we were in Italy, I flipped him the keys to the car so he could drive and he flipped them back to me saying, "No thanks." When I asked him why, he said that he was scared.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 9:20 AM
I'm in America, and I include Indians in Asians.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 9:22 AM
Driving in Italy was okay once I was out of Rome, but in Rome it was absolutely terrifying. Riding in the back of a taxi was scary in Rome.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 9:46 AM
Ok, not a competition, but let the record show, I've been to Italy, and even had some close calls there while being driven around, but Italy is a country of Swiss grandmothers compared to Iran. I really can't describe how bad and different traffic in Iran is. I tell people to imagine driving without using your brakes, and imagine that no one else can use theirs. Here's how one writer for Outside described it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 10:07 AM
Okay, you win. Iran takes the blue ribbon prize for craziest drivers in the world. Congrats.
Posted by D | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 1:23 PM
Ogged - that's almost enough to get me to stipulate that Teheran has worse drivers than Boston, Nashville or Montreal. Almost... (And I learned to drive in Brooklyn.)
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 02- 2-05 11:04 PM