paulness15

I hope this does not offend....

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I have lived in the UK, Australia and I am currently living in the USA (New York area). One thing that I have noticed with my experience in the USA is that:

• There are noticeably more crashes here
• Drivers do not always indicate/give directional signals
• Drivers are more impatient here
• Drivers have less respect for crossings/peds and cyclists
• Drivers have less common sense and are unable to react to hazards

There are also articles on this online (type in Google: An American tribute to British drivers). I don't think I am alone in this thinking? As I cycle, walk and drive the quality and competency of the drivers around me is very important to me. Is this something I just have to live with in the USA?

rumrunn6

& if you criticize them they sh**t you. but seriously NYC does not represent the rest of the country. if that's what you meant by "New York area"

paulness15

That is good news to hear things are better elsewhere in the country. I hope similar to the UK.

I live 12 miles from NYC in NJ.

wphamilton

Yeh, and it's not changing soon. I think it's due to a combination of how many miles people drive, and how many cars are on the road. They develop habits of entitlement and aggressively compete for their share of the road.

When I learned to drive, we did have those sorts of drivers but they were a rare minority, and they were held in general contempt. Now, that same type of driving seems to be normal. The big difference, then and now, is traffic density. Maybe in another 40 years, the pendulum will swing back the other way.

CliffordK

It varies even within a state. Cars are much more likely to signal in Eugene, OR than Portland, OR, at least that used to be the case. I frequently have cars waiting for me and my bike, and rarely hear horns.

paulness15

Interesting to get an insight into how things have changed over time thanks!

rumrunn6

oh, Jersey!!!!!!**********? well that's a whole other story .... just kidding

I'm a transplanted New Yorker. love it up here

KD5NRH

I hear having to spin the crank to start the car tended to burn off a lot of aggression.

Leebo

MA is just bliss for driving and biking. Not.

Moe Zhoost

As aggressive drivers diffuse out from metropolitan areas like NYC, they bring their behaviours to smaller, more gentile areas. This unfortunately infects the locals when they encounter these alien behaviours. Nobody benefits.

Then again, perhaps aggressive drivers are the ones paying attention. Perhaps we should worry less about them.

paulness15

That's an interesting point, the careless or inattentive drivers are likely to be the ones causing the most fatalities.

I should learn to just let things slide with the aggressive ones. I'm bound to come across them from time to time no matter what I do. At least they can see me

genec

I wonder what sort of training is required in Australia and the UK to obtain a license. In the US it is about 40 hours of drivers ed, for which a provisional license is issued, depending on state and age.

Chris0516

I have never lived in Australia. But I lived in London for two years, in the late-1970's. I found it bad forty years ago when I lived there, and it is still bad. The drivers are just as ignorant in London, as they are in NYC.

The one thing London n' NYC had in common at one point. They didn't know where to put the trash. There was a garbage barge traversing the Hudson years ago. London had a not-too-recent garbage crisis where it accumulated on the street. Now they have a stench in the city.

CB HI

The cycling videos of London, make it look just as bad. I guess the bad drivers are just being highlighted by the videos. Or London is just far worse than the rest of the UK.

paulness15

I think a bit of both, London has some poor road design and the people that thrive in London are not as patient as the rest of the U.K. In addition London is very multicultural.

I lived outside of London, smaller city in the North. People in cars used to wave at each other when yielding and at cyclists.

I remember cars used to slow down extra early for pedestrian crossings, to show that they are definitely stopping at the crossing to the pedestrian.

Hokiedad4

I haven't seen data for crash rates between different countries but living in NJ, I know we have one of the highest accident rates in the US. Also one of the highest percentages of immigrants, which might be correlated. So riding around here takes more effort to find roads to stay off the beaten path.

work4bike

I try not to be offended by facts. And the fact is that I see (all the time) everything you listed out on the roads. I don't know how this compares to other drivers around the world, I've seen some very bad driving in my journeys around the world, but admit not remembering seeing anything that seriously concerned me during my visits to the UK.

Although, I will add that pedestrians also seem to have some culpability here in how they just seem to mindlessly wander into the crosswalks.

Chris0516

In London, they have a preference to what they call round-a-bouts. Examples of that, that I know of in DC are, DuPont, Westmoreland, and Ward, Circle. Transportation planners in the U.S. have toyed with the idea of switching from traffic lights to circles. But circles involve a greater land mass needed.

rickyk76

Having recently been to the U.K. (London and Nottingham) and Ireland, I'd say that there are morons behind the wheel in both countries. I'm a pretty aggressive driver and even I was shocked at how impatient Londoners were behind the wheel. That being said, I've driven in Thailand and Taiwan and have been driven around India and I would take the USA or U.K. over any of those.

AlexCyclistRoch

Having driven all over North America, I can say with experience that NYC drivers are bad, but not the worst. Boston drivers win that prize! Also, Montreal drivers are unpredictable but fast, Dallas drivers are dumb but pushy, and Atlanta drivers are the least likely to use turn signals.

Actually, NYC drivers, while being aggressive are actually quite predictable, provided that you remember this one rule: Any time there is just barely 1 car-length open, somebody WILL fill the space.

randomgear

Take offense? Car drivers in Boston take pride in being known as M*******s! Thankfully our streets can be crowded so speeds are generally slower and we have some of the best hospitals in the world.

Car-lite for 21 years.

CB HI

Seems you have not driven in Hawaii.

canklecat

You're not wrong. I've driven through most of the contiguous lower 48 states in the U.S. delivering vehicles, on other business and vacations. Americans generally overestimate their driving skills, have an exaggerated sense of entitlement to the road, believe their personal trips are more important than anyone else's and have selfish egos fed by a marketing machine that caters to this selfishness and tendency to regard public roads as personal race tracks.

FWIW, I've seen the same mentality extend to "roadies" on shared multi-use paths shared by pedestrians and cyclists. The wannabe racers riding carbon bikes and wearing racing kit while blasting along the MUP and threading between pedestrians and slower cyclists show exactly the same lack of consideration.

And believe it or not it's better now than it was years ago in the U.S.

For one thing it's much more expensive to drive than it was years ago. Fuel costs much more, even with the recent downswings in price. Vehicles overall cost much more, relative to average middle class and working class income, although newer vehicles cost less in the long run due to better fuel efficiency and fewer maintenance requirements, and being safer for drivers and occupants. Insurance costs much more -- in particular liability insurance which wasn't mandatory in most of the U.S. until the 1980s. Emissions testing is more expensive, as is registration and the additional peripheral burdens such as licensing (getting a state license or ID demands much more proof of citizenship than it did years ago). Overall the nation is much more litigious, spurred on by non-stop "Sue somebody!" ads on late night TV.

The overall result of costing more to drive, along with better public awareness of safety in general, means American drivers are less terrible than they used to be.

Things could still be better. But it's difficult to change attitudes in such a large, diverse nation with very different travel scenarios between the heavily concentrated eastern seaboard, upper midwest, midwest, south and western states. At the same time it's difficult to compare most individual states to the smallish European nations they resemble in size and population.

kickstart

Having lived in Europe, and many years as a truck driver in the US, its been my experience that overall driver quality declines as population density increases. There also seems to be a sharp decline in driver quality at the opposite extremes of the socioeconomic scale.

italktocats

but the usa is barely populated, and countries in west europe and asian are crashing a lot less, hate to tell you all but nobody on this planet is a decent driver!