A buddy that I sail with comes from Hong Kong. A year or so ago he brought his parents out here to retire. Both are in their seventies, and neither had ever sat behind the wheel of a car in their entire lives because public transit is cheap and plentiful where they come from.

Now they have their licenses and matching Toyota Camries. Watching them drive is a friggin nightmare. They have no coordination and all their reflexes are off. But they love it. They pilot these things through town like kids in an amusement park. And the town I live in is full of people just like them!

I lived in Japan a couple of times when I was younger (dad in the Navy). I love Japan and most things Asian.

I never much liked Andrew Dice Clay, but he did have one joke about "Asian drivers" once that I thought was funny (assuming you can put aside your feelings and take it as a joke and not an attack).

"Why would you give a driver's license to someone that you can blindfold with dental floss?"

Could that be offensive, sure, to someone, I'm sure it is. Hopefully none of you were offended. I think it's funny. I think it's important to be able to laugh at stereotypes and yourself.

BTW, for the most part this thread sucks.

this is the crux of the problem. it's not that they're Asian, because if they were white, or anything else for that matter, they would be pretty much the same. have you ever driven around some of those retirement communities in southern Florida??? ;)

now what gets me: I've driven all over Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, et al. and drivers there do damned well in most situations. they are actually better than most americans in similar scenarios. so what the hell happens when they get here? :D

I've often wondered the same thing. I live in Koreatown in L.A., never been to Korea. How is the driving there? To say that as a group these people are bad drivers is a massive understatement, there are so many collisions on the intersection at the end of my block that no one even goes outside to see them unless it sounds like a nuclear explosion. About 99% of the ones I have seen involved a Korean, (not Korean-American), who could not judge the speed/distance of cross-traffic and simply drove into another car that had the right-of-way.

Our driver's license exams are way too easy, that's not debatable. People have licenses who simply cannot drive. No one in their right mind would argue that this ethnic group lacks intelligence, or athletic ability. (Which is connected to coordination and spatial relations, etc.). There is some other problem that needs addressing, and might be as simple as better instruction. I've often thought about becoming a driving instructor in my neighborhood, but bilingual Korean/English would be necessary to really go big w/ that idea. A body shop is another brain-storm, there can never be enough of them around there. The people in my neighborhood almost w/o exception drive new cars and presumably have full-coverage insurance, I'm not kidding when I say that body repair is a big business in this community.

Back to CA. driving tests: even though you could train a monkey to pass the driving portion, there are people who have failed it repeatedly! :eek: And they let them keep taking it. Fking unbelievable...

To the bigger issue of racism and political correctness, (both are odious, but racism is worse), I was always told that there was a special exemption for national driving stereotypes. :D

Seriously.

"How do you know when you are in Koreatown?"

"The Mexicans have car insurance."

(From a Mexican comedian). :cool:

Excellent post Denis. Driving lessons is probably a great way to pick up some hot Korean ladies too!

LOL, that is funny :D I kinda miss Dice, what is he up to?

Are you THAT bored?

did anyone NOT find the nursury rhymes funny? Man that was some good stuff!

i purposely avoid several nursery rhymes when reading to my son thanks to Dice; i'd hate to slip up! Let's see, there was Hickory Dickory Doc, Little Miss Muffet (a personal favorite), Old Mother Hubbard, Lady in the Shoe, Jack & Jill..........lot's of good stuff!

I think there needs to be a minimum residency requirement for all immigrants to our country before they can get a license.

Even though some kids are driving for the first time, they have been driving with mom and dad for 16+ years and have learned the rules of the road IN OUR COUNTRY through osmosis

I am not a racist.




I think everyone should own one.

A chick I know dates only Asian guys (likes it small), and she said it's a joke among Asian guys how easy it is to get a drivers licence here in New Zealand. One stunt is for one guy to get the licence and a dozen of his mates borrow it if they get caught doing something wrong and have to produce a drivers licence. And as far as the photo
ID goes, they day "Oh ya, that me before I got my hair cut and when I had chummpy chops". Another stunt is they get something like a packing slip from a box of Lychees and tell the drivers licensing people it's a drivers licence from the provence of Xylbbxgg, and get handed a Kiwi one. Our insurance premiums have gone way up and give way signs made into stop signs because of the huge number of accidents from our fresh off the boat Asians. I'm certainly not anti Asian as I've dated quite a few, it's just the dents in the car and the money it's costing me.

Thanks Bill, this thread was starting to get boring! :D

Personally I am a racist... I race here... I race there... ;)

That happens all the time here in the US and not with Asians. I personally busted a group of guys making false insurance claims with US licenses they got on the strength of "bent" EU licenses.

I typed "Asian Drivers" into Google and clicked "I'm Feeling Lucky", this is the link:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=asian+driver

For my own story, there was this guy on scenic Huron River Drive last week, he kept hitting his brakes for no reason, speeding up and slowing down at random.I thought for sure he was looking for an address, but this also happened when no drives of houses were around. At one point he was stopped dead in the road, but I kept my distance, sure enough he moved forward without warning.

He stopped at an intersection to turn left, no oncoming traffic, no stop sign or stop light, he just stopped. As I passed I could see he was Asian and had two small kids in the back seat. All I could think is; poor kids on a terror ride.

Oh yea, I gave him the finger as I passed to express my displeasure, don't think he saw it though, just like he could not see the road.:D

lmao! that must have been Paul Rodriguez

as for driving in Korea, it was great. people do move diligently for the most part. they even crowd the center stripe in a lane at stoplights just to let right-turning traffic pass :eek: even Seoul, which had about 5mil cars at the time, was manageable. a leisurely-driving American would be in for a rude surprise there

Man lots of prejudice coming out in this thread.

"Little Boy Blue, HE NEEDED THE MONEY!!"...

"Heeeeeyyy" :cool:

Nonsense. Prejudice would be claiming Asian drivers are bad when you've never experienced it yourself. It's not prejudice to report the facts or retell factual stories.

Original poster wrote a blanket statement denigrating all Asian drivers based on one incident. He even titled this thread "Asian Drivers WTF? Are They Thinking?" encompassing the whole.

How is that factual unless he has experienced all Asian drivers?

I didn't say the opening thread was patently factual. But I do not at all think others' agreeing with him in part constitutes prejudice, especially since plenty have added their own personal anecdotes to support the claim. Whatever it is, it ain't prejudice. Prejudice is when my Chinese fiance says Jews are stingy, when she's never met a Jewish person.