Thursday, August 25, 2011

Driving in Asia


I thought I'd encountered the worst drivers in the world in various African countries (not to mention Rome in Italy!), but this video clip of driving in various Asian countries and cities has me goggling.







After seeing that, I think I'll stick to the relatively sane, safe roads of the USA for a while!





Peter

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I commuted to work daily on the NJ TurnPike, Garden state Parkway and Rte-80 for many years.

I've seen more accidents in the last 7-minutes of the video than I did in all those years driving on the "Hell-Highways".

No wonder many american male drivers lose their lunch when they see an Indian (from India), Japanese or Korean female driver, especially peering THROUGH the steering-wheel spokes of a Toyota Carolla.

Anonymous said...

Have you not driven in Naples? (That's Italy, not Florida, although the Florida version has its charms!) I think one of the reasons I didn't have problems in Rome was that I had lived in Naples for about six months before I went to Rome.
MichigammeDave

Steve_in_CA said...

Looks like the freeways in the San Fransisco Bay Area. The Asian countries don't fine their bad drivers. They export them to the US.

Old NFO said...

Drove in Naples, Sicily, and Japan/Okinawa... STILL trying to get the nerves to calm down...

FrankC said...

Can't be all bad, keeps the panel beaters in business.

MikeinAppalachia said...

Pretty typical. Manila and Bangkok are pretty bad, but the congestion is such that few are killed due to the low speeds. India is a real trat with huge Tata trucks taking their lane out of the middle anywhere anytime.
How do you tell if a used car is from Manila? The horn is worn out, there's nothing left of the brake pads, and the turn signals have never been used.

perlhaqr said...

I dunno, it's a big compilation, but I bet you could just as easily make one in the US.

I've had cars drive at me on the wrong side of the freeway, dodged wheels that had come off a truck and come across the median, dodged cars that were having accidents in front of me, had a dump truck stop in the middle of the road and then back up over my hood. Crazy crap happens everywhere.

Bob@thenest said...

30 years military, drove lots overseas. Worse for me was South Korea (2 years and a constant on-the-road position). Took me a while to break the code: When entering a traffic circle (roundabout), he who makes eye contact loses. And to be blindfolded would not be a detriment as all others are.

Mikael said...

None of it was from japan... I think the one lirrle clip with left side driving was thailand(I'm surprised there wasn't more of that in there), most of it seemed to be china. I think I heard russian/slavic language in there somewhere pretty early on as well.

As much as I say I'm surprised there wasn't more from thailand, from what I've seen(and I've spent a total of about 8 months there), most of them are competent drivers, very much so in many cases, however bangkok traffic is nuts(and probably phuket too, not so much in the rest of the country). You will however see a distinct disregard for safety(IE: people sitting in flatbeds on pickups, entire families puttering along on a single scooter, etc). Most accidents tend to be tourists on rental scooters. tattoo usually refers to roadrash from falling on a scooter.

Mikael said...

*placename tattoo usually refers to roadrash from falling on a scooter