Actually, an Asian friend of my wife, who was born in Taiwan, says Asian women are the worst drivers and don’t care what they do to others.
I guess it is the culture, which basically sucks.
>>Actually, an Asian friend of my wife, who was born in Taiwan, says Asian women are the worst drivers and don’t care what they do to others. I guess it is the culture, which basically sucks.<<
My wife, who is Filipina, says Chinese woman drivers in Manila are notorious for being awful drivers. Usually they kill Filipino pedestrians instead of themselves.
While I have no formal study to back this up, my theory is that in the US, motor vehicles were first introduced as a luxury for a select few, then something of a more utilitarian necessity, and over time became the widespread everyday, taken for granted phenomenon it is today. Thus, our culture has had over a century to evolve customs and courtesies of the road, traffic laws driver's ed programs, etc. Kids grew up as passengers with mom or dad driving and learned some of this by osmosis, and over time, road networks, gas stations, and other infrastructure grew in concert with motor vehicle usage.
In Korea, and presumably some other Asian countries, motor vehicles remained toys of the wealthy for a long time until sudden burgeoning economies in the 80s led to the immediate widespread availability of cars without any slow evolution or inculcation of driving culture, or the opportunity to build supporting road networks. You had young adults as new car buyers who came from house holds that rode trains, busses or in rural areas, ox carts all through their childhood. Without learning or developing good driving habits, they merely reinforced bad habits every time they got behind the wheel...and now they're teaching the next generations to drive.
Just my theory....
Taxis in Taipei are a hair-raising experience.
Two of my colleagues and I went to a department store right before Christmas.
The taxi darted in amongst scooters with whole families on board, and had one after the other near misses.
I just tried to look at the floorboard so that when we inevitably hit someone I wouldn’t see the carnage.
I heard my male friend yell “look out” several times.
When we got to the department store it was wall to wall humanity.
You couldn’t stop to look at anything, you just had to go with the flow, wound up being swept in one door and out the other.
Got separated from both colleagues, but since one was a head taller than everyone else and black and the other lady was also quite tall and Hawaiian was able to keep them in sight.
The Taiwanese were very friendly and seemed to like Americans.
” an Asian friend of my wife, who was born in Taiwan, says Asian women are the worst drivers “
I lived there a few years in the 60s. We were told Right-of-Way was determined by gross vehicle weight! Good advice to always assume that...
Driving in the Philippines, it was a good idea to wear mirror sunglasses. If another driver could make eye contact, they assumed they had the right to pull out in front of you. With mirror glasses, they never made eye contact and would hesitate.
“Actually, an Asian friend of my wife, who was born in Taiwan, says Asian women are the worst drivers and don’t care what they do to others. I guess it is the culture, which basically sucks.”
Actually, I think it’s because they often don’t drive in their home countries and then have to learn driving as an adult, possibly at an advanced age (like all of us here, LOL).