Which Place in the World has the Worst Drivers

[Rick Tyler]

I've driven nearly everywhere in the US and found that there are definitely regional differences.

1. California -- move fast or stay home. Not actively rude, but they don't care if you live or die. Every time I return to California I have to remember to drive 20 MPH faster than anyone in Washington would in the same situation.

2. Massachusetts -- like Californians with a random number generator added. There is no way to predict what a Mass driver will do. Aggressive, hostile, and random.

3. New York City -- take a cab and try not to look.

4. Washington -- the spiritual cousins of Indiana. Washingtonians mosey along. They stop in the middle of 4-lane highways to let people make left turns. At a 4-way stop you might have four Washingtonians all trying to let everyone else go first. They stop and stare at jay-walkers. Despite their excessive politeness, they will also do inscrutable things like change lanes without signaling, merge at 20MPH into traffic going 60, and sit in the left turn pocket at a green light without entering the intersection (this last one drives me insane). Accidents in Washington are nearly all caused by someone with the right-of-way trying to yield it to someone who doesn't.

5. Within 10 blocks of the Microsoft headquarters -- thousands of young nerds driving fast, $75,000 cars who all think they are the reincarnation of Fangio. They don't care if they wreck, since they have six more BMWs at home, and they cost less than a couple of percent of what they cashed out for in 2001. Do not mess with a German car in south Redmond.

[ 12-21-2005, 08:13 PM: Message edited by: Rick Tyler ]

[ahp]

I used to live in Massachusetts, drive into Boston often, and also do business travel in California.. We just got back from California a week ago. Californians are very well behaved drivers. Massachusetts drivers are anarchists, but they are very tolerent of everything and anything except hesitation. When driving in Massachusetts never hesitate. What did that French General say, "Toujours l'audace"?

[Doug Wood]

I lived in the SF bay area for ~ 7 years. Aside from the fact that traffic is ALWAYS congested, drivers weren't too bad except when it rained. Californians simply don't understand how to drive in weather...scary.

Worst drivers are from New Hampshire. For some reason, they all seem to be in a big hurry and they apparently don't believe in turn signals or know how to use them.

[Meerkat]

"What did that French General say, "Toujours l'audace"?"

"That french General" was Napoleon ;)
The exact quote is, IIRC: "L'Audace, tourjours l'audace!" (Audactiy, always audacity!)

In my experience, Massachusetts drivers were the worst. First time I've even seen people back out of their driveways onto a major route, back half way across, blocking oncoming traffic, while waiting for the other lane to clear so they could back onto it and got that direction.

Than, I got to Yokohama and Tokyo. :eek: !!!!!!!!!

[ 12-21-2005, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: Meerkat ]

[Memphis Mike]

You ain't been to Memphis yet. ;)

[Rick Tyler]

Originally posted by Memphis Mike:
You ain't been to Memphis yet. ;) Haven't been there yet. Spent a week in Nashville, though -- any similarities?

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Yours ;)

[Billy Bones]

Massholes by three lengths.

Virgin Islanders next.

[cedar savage]

Don't drive in Southern Michigan after the snow's been turned to slush by salt with your window open even a crack.

Totally aside from the topic, this is sorta like posting a recipe on ljb5's thread, but I did a google on Rick's email addy:

rhtyler@gmail.com

The Google "did you mean to search for" cracked me up. Sorry, Rick.

[ 12-21-2005, 06:01 PM: Message edited by: cedar savage ]

[Rick Tyler]

Originally posted by cedar savage:
The Google "did you mean to search for" cracked me up. Stand at attention when you write that, peasant!

[joejapan]

.
I've been to Memphis.....MMike's got something there, they've got a lot of "special" drivers. Then, try driving outside of Memphis where everybody's doing 60+ on a two lane road, 'till you come up on a caravan of cotton wagons doing 8 mph! :eek:

I've gotta' go with the Massachusetts folks being bad though.....drive like they don't care at all. :rolleyes:

LA is the worst of California drivers; I hated driving down there. When they're in their cars, they're out in "LaLa Land", oblivious to all.

Yep, Meerkat, you've gotta' be careful 'round Tokyo and Yokohama...and would you believe to drive a Japanese is REQUIRED to complete a two month, $3000, full course driving school ?

Still, Italy is perhaps the worst; anything's legal as long as you honk your horns first. ;)

Cairo, Egypt has terrible drivers and is absolutely the noisiest place on earth !.....everybody's got a horn and they honk it 24/7 ! :mad:

If ya' wanna' get the crap scared outta' ya...try driving in Central America, where the bus drivers pass cars down the MIDDLE of the road ! Maybe it's the "rule of superior tonnage".

Still, in Washington state, I saw an awful lot of drivers that figured they could drive anywhere "between the ditches". Except around Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane, most of the driver's cared little about "those yellow lines". :D

[Donn]

Florida, hands down. Old people and tourists.

[Meerkat]

Originally posted by joejapan:
.

Yep, Meerkat, you've gotta' be careful 'round Tokyo and Yokohama...and would you believe to drive a Japanese is REQUIRED to complete a two month, $3000, full course driving school ?
:D In a word, NO! :eek: :D

I was told, while there, that you must present proof of offstreet parking in Tokyo before you can take delivery of a car.

If you want to give a japanese cab driver a heart attack, try getting out the left (street) side of the cab (remember: left hand drive over there!). I had the door slammed (remote mechanical linkage) on my leg when I tried it. Cabbie was quite shaken up! "Civilized people" (ie: Japanese) don't DO that! :D

[Venchka]

No contest. Hands down! The worst drivers are in Louisiana. The worst of the worst are in/around New Orleans. I'm not saying that everyone in Louisiana is a bad driver. If that were the case, there wouldn't be any drivers left. :D

Worst place to be a passenger: Nigeria! No contest. WAY scary!

Wayne
In Texas. :D

[cs]

If we can expand this outside of our borders I will say by far the worst drivers are in the United Arab Emigrates.

Imagine driving a deuce and half and half on a two lane road(I call them circus trucks) pass you on the left and at the same time a pickup pass you on the right (off the road) while two circus trucks are coming at you, and all at speeds in excess of 50 mph. Now once or twice I can understand, but this is a common accurance.

Chad

[Bob Cleek]

No question about it, the worst driver is the guy in front of me! :D

Actually, my vote goes to Boston. This is the only place where I've actually seen people deall with rush hour by creating an extra right turn lane on the SIDEWALK! No kidding, really.

Then there are the Asians in the SF Bay Area... "DWA": Driving while Asian. They really don't get it. This is not a racist slur... the CHP statistics prove it out. Somehow they get licenses without a clue what driving is about.

[Bruce Taylor]

Daghestan.

[Rick Tyler]

Originally posted by Bob Cleek:
Then there are the Asians in the SF Bay Area... "DWA": Driving while Asian. It's an immigrant problem, with new drivers coming from societies where driving is unusual. It's just harder to spot bad immigrant drivers that look all whitebread and stuff.

[ 12-21-2005, 09:16 PM: Message edited by: Rick Tyler ]

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

New York is a lot of cars, but not too bad or too fast.... Yep I've been there.

Montreal... lookout.. crazy french drivers :mad:

Toronto... fast, but very competent.

I've heard Rome and Paris are pretty scary. :D

[huisjen]

Katey tells of the time when she realized it was time to get out of Boston with this story:

She was crossing the street at a crosswalk, with the light, when she was hit by a car running the red light in reverse at speed. In order not to be run down, she jumped up just as it hit her and landed on the trunk. The car kept going until she started pounding on the rear window. At this point the driver noticed her, breaked hard, and took off again, running the red light again, but this time in the foreward direction, and dumping her on the asphalt, angery, but largely unhurt.

Boston has my vote, and lately, Portland Maine is showing how many Boston commuters live there.

Dan

[Meerkat]

Originally posted by Rick Tyler:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bob Cleek:
Then there are the Asians in the SF Bay Area... "DWA": Driving while Asian. It's an immigrant problem, with new drivers coming from societies where driving is unusual. It's just harder to spot bad immigrant drivers that look all whitebread and stuff.</font>[/QUOTE]You haven't lived here long enough! There are American born Asians that "DWA." Be especially on the lookout for (almost always) "tricked out" Hondas, especially on I-5 between Seatac and downtown on Friday nights! ;) The low-slung chassis and big exhaust pipes, as well as the erratic driving, are dead give aways! :D

[Rick Tyler]

Originally posted by Meerkat:
You haven't lived here long enough! There are American born Asians that "DWA." Be especially on the lookout for (almost always) "tricked out" Hondas, Dude, I might live here, but I'm a Californian. I was born with gasoline in my veins and a steering wheel in my hands. Slammed Hondas (and other Japanese cars) are a menace everywhere on the west coast. They are way more common in SoCal than they are here.

You want to keep a sharp eye out for 30-something women with kids in the back of their luxury SUVs. The one thing they aren't doing is paying attention to their driving. I've had a cop tell me he'd rather arrest a 6-3, 250-pound man on PCP than give a traffic ticket to a mom with kids running errands.

[Keith Wilson]

Of the places I've been in the world, it's Managua, hands down. Nothing in the US even comes close. Those guys are CRAZY!! :eek: :eek:

[imported_GregW]

I've been around some, and I would say by far the worst driving conditions, made even worst by bad drivers is India.
Typical Indian road scenes:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/Gregwpl/side.jpg
This one sees all the time.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/Gregwpl/camel.jpg
Everything shares the road.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/Gregwpl/Truck.jpg
A thing about India is that they are weighted down with excess gov't regulations

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b393/Gregwpl/road.jpg
Not much room for passing

[ 12-21-2005, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: GregW ]

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

None of the above.

I've driven in the Philippines (really remarkably good) , China (see "DWA", above), Malaysia, Singapore (very good) Hong Kong (not at all bad), the UAE, Egypt and a fair slice of Europe.

The worst, by a country mile is Tehran .

Not only is the place full of teenagers, the men are all afflicted with excess testosterone and the women drive in headscarves so they cannot see a thing. Furthermore, proper traffic policing was abandoned years ago as being insufficiently Islamic ie the Revolutionary Guards were not interested in it.

[ 12-22-2005, 03:44 AM: Message edited by: Andrew Craig-Bennett ]

[George.]

I find it funny that so many Americans are trying to argue that someplace in the US is the worst. American traffic is the tamest I know, and I have driven in NYC, New Orleans, Mass, SF, Florida, and all the other "candidates"...

My list:

Brazil is far worse than Italy.

Colombia is far, far worse than Brazil. I cannot imagine anyone driving worse than Colombians and surviving for long. There, I have been in a cab that took an exit ramp off a four-lane expressway going the wrong way. I have been on buses that passed on blind curbs on hairpin mountain roads, and one of them would swerve to the opposite shoulder to avoid oncoming cars. They always floor it, no matter what, and they always pass as soon as they get near a slower car, no matter where.

Unbelievable.

[Andrew S/Y Rocquette]

Funnily enough, Brussels, in my opinion.

[Andrew S/Y Rocquette]

Funnily enough, Brussels, in my opinion.

[Fitz]

Mass - worst in the world??? PLEASSSSEEE! I drive in Boston every single weekday. You want some fun? - try out the NEW TUNNEL - Wheeee!!! I especially like going northbound from South Station and trying to get to Storrow Drive. The engineers thought it would be fun if you had to enter the tunnel and cross 4 lanes of high speed traffic, and truck traffic, in a tunnel, in a mile, to get to the Storrow exit!

It's as simple as knowing where you want to go and going with the flow.

GIVE ME A BRAKE. Talk about unwarranted sweeping generalizations!

In England they drive on the wrong side of the road!

I got passed on the right this morning in the dark by an honda accord doing nearly 100 mph and he had Rhode Island plates.

Massachusetts gets a bad rap.

Florida has nearly 10 times more fatalities.

http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/news/individual%20news%20articles/x_040810_persons-killed-in-each- state_ (http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/news/individual%20news%20articles/x_040810_persons-killed-in-each-s tate_) 2002-3.htm

[ 12-22-2005, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: Fitz ]

[Andrew S/Y Rocquette]

Originally posted by Fitz:

In England they drive on the wrong side of the road!
No we don't...YOU do!

smile.gif

[ 12-22-2005, 07:37 AM: Message edited by: Andrew S/Y Rocquette ]

[Sea Frog]

Turkey.

[Dan McCosh]

Re the DWA thing: Last time I drove in Seoul, the Americans were given a full police escort, apparently to warn the locals that the Americans were coming.

[martin schulz]

Paris is quite interesting, even though I love to drive there: very fast (when possible), no rules, roundabouts en masse, traffic lights only apply when there is traffic...

But I heard that India is the worst place...

[Dan McCosh]

The problem with this thread is that nearly everyone is assuming that chaotic traffic conditions (India, Paris, et al) imply the worst drivers. Quite the opposite is true. Anyone can drive when others are polite and orderly. The really good drivers are capable of crossing Mexico City in rush hour, finding the outside lane around the Arc de Triomphe, and dodging the clothes racks in the street in midtown Manhattan. The streets belong to the quick and the dead.

[ 12-22-2005, 09:47 AM: Message edited by: Dan McCosh ]

[Bruce Taylor]

The problem with this thread is that nearly everyone is assuming that chaotic traffic conditions ...imply the worst drivers.That's why I nominated Daghestan (though Turkey and Iran are both fine candidates). There's almost no traffic, but it's still thoroughly terrifying to drive (or even walk) in Mahachkala.

Parisian drivers are quite good, in my opinion (they have to be). Same goes for Montrealers.

[imported_GregW]

If we are to judge drivership by carnage, I think Turkey may be a winner. However, India is pure chaos,with more than it's fair share in daily traffic related deaths.

[Dan McCosh]

Apparently Iraq also is interesting, particularly after the Americans eliminated all the traffic laws.

[ahp]

I have never driven outside the US except in Canada and more recently, a week in Cornwall, England. That was ok once you used to driving on the left and all those roundabouts that go clockwise.

A friend worked in Iran, until the Shah was kicked out, on a Bell Labs contract. The accedent rate amoung their Iranian truck drivers was unbelievable. Perhaps its was a case of "If Allah wills I die today, I will." So they drove like mad men.

Bell Labs then hired Korean drivers and the accedents went way down.

[Willin']

Shelby, North Carolina. Hell I thought everyone knew that. :D

[George.]

I have to laugh at this thread. It is titled "Which Place in the [b]World[/i] has the Worst Drivers." And then we have a bunch of Americans, many of whom have never been anywhere in the world except the U.S., arguing that some place in the U.S. has them.

Do you guys have to be number one in everything? Sorry, you lose this one. Badly. To a huge number of places. :D

[Donn]

Originally posted by George.:
I find it funny that so many Americans are trying to argue that someplace in the US is the worst.
Originally posted by George.:
I have to laugh at this thread. It is titled "Which Place in the [b]World[/i] has the Worst Drivers." And then we have a bunch of Americans, many of whom have never been anywhere in the world except the U.S., arguing that some place in the U.S. has them.:rolleyes:

I've driven on every continent(that isn't frozen). Florida has the WORLD'S worst drivers.

[ 12-22-2005, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: Donn ]

[George.]

I lived in Florida for years. I drove there. You clearly don't know sh!t about the rest of the world. But then we knew that, Donn... tongue.gif

[Alan D. Hyde]

I have a friend who worked for several years in Saudi Arabia.

He swears that Saudis are the world's worst drivers.

Once, he saw two new top-of-the-line Mercedes being delivered to two Sheiks. They drove off at great speed, each in his own new car, onto the desert at about the same time, surrounded by innumerable square miles of trackless waste.

Yet, neither would give way to the other.

So, they collided, and totaled both cars. :D

Alan

[John Bell]

I am the world's worst driver. At least that's the verdict when my wife is in the car with me. It's amazing that I'm even alive to tell you this. I mean, I drive thousands of miles a year by myself without being a participant in or causing any accidents, but when she's with me we're continuously on the verge of disaster. It's a good thing she has the invisble brake pedal on the passenger side, otherwise we'd all be dead.

[PeterSibley]

In my limited experience ...Southern India,I've heard the North is worse.There is one rule...mass rules, the rest you figger out .

The only thing I would drive in India is a truck...a big one. :D

[ 12-22-2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: PeterSibley ]

[Memphis Mike]

Originally posted by George.:
I have to laugh at this thread. It is titled "Which Place in the [b]World[/i] has the Worst Drivers." And then we have a bunch of Americans, many of whom have never been anywhere in the world except the U.S., arguing that some place in the U.S. has them.

Do you guys have to be number one in everything? Sorry, you lose this one. Badly. To a huge number of places. :D Well I don't know about the worst drivers but Brazil sure has the biggests mouths.

[Meerkat]

The trouble with driving in Canada is how mixed they are about speed limit signs.

I mean you see a sign that says "100", so you go 100 and after not so long, you get stopped by a police car with two red faced out of breath policemen, who, between gasps for breath, politely (most Canadians are very polite) ask why you were going so fast? I said "I was doing the speed limit!".

Come to find out they used Kanadian Miles Per Hour or kmph. These are shrimpy, little miles, not like our American miles at all!

Anyway, after the confusion was resolved, and I learned that 100 kmph is actually 55 real mph, they let me go.

Before they left, I asked them why they were so red faced and out of breath... "You'd be out of breath too sir if you had to peddle that fast!"

:D :D :D

[Norske3]

And the worst of the worst ...nationwide...are the Boston, Massachusetts drivers.And its the young women who are the most AGGRESSIVE!