Comment by phainopepla2
2 days ago
I would argue that the immigrant behaving reasonably "for how they were used to driving" is itself unreasonable. When you move to foreign country you have to adjust some things about your behavior. Driving behaviors and anything else with such a strong public safety component should be the most obvious thing to adjust for an adult, without needing to be told.
Question, have you been an immigrant? Do you know any immigrants?
When you immigrate into a country, all of a sudden all of your reflexes are wrong. Some are obviously wrong. Some are more subtle. It is overwhelming, and too much.
While in retrospect it is easy to say that they should prioritize some things over others, in practice they tend to learn from experience after people respond badly, and those who are a little more used to the culture explain why they are wrong. And the experience of being told that they are wrong all of the time will make many hold on to some of their old habits extremely strongly.
Don't criticize how slowly immigrants adapt to a new country, until you've been an immigrant in a foreign culture.
As an immigrant (I immigrated to Hong Kong)，I disagree when It comes to road safety. I believe that it's the responsibility of every driver to learn the differences when driving and until then practice safe defensive driving.
I agree with you that it takes a while to adapt to new sociale mores and it's worth cutting immigrants some slack but that's different from driving a multi-ton heap of metal where safety is important.
Sidenote: Of the different cities I've lived in Asia, HK drivers are some of the worst. Combination of aggressive driving with refusal to signal their attention (by using their turn signal) makes for very poor driving. Not everyone but a significant percentage.
How many of those aggressive drivers do you think would agree with your reasoning? The standard reasoning is something like, "I'm fine as long as I don't hit anything." If you have that attitude, you will feel that you are safe in another country. Shifting this attitude takes time.
I was an immigrant to a new country. I made an effort to learn the new rules. The immigrant adapts, not the country.
I haven't been a permanent immigrant, but I have lived for over a year each in India, China and South Korea, driving in India and South Korea (I'm from the US). I made a lot of social faux pas, but you can bet I did my best to adapt to the rules of the road before I even got behind the wheel.
As an immigrant myself, this criticism on driving is valid. What you said should apply to more social contextes like table, public manners.
> Don't criticize how slowly immigrants adapt to a new country, until you've been an immigrant in a foreign culture.
I am an immigrant and find this line of thinking to be a cheap rhetorical trick, a thought-terminating cliché. Yes, people who are not immigrants can share their opinion on the behaviors of immigrants. Maybe we can all learn a little from each other instead of gatekeeping anybody who has had a different lived experience.
I'm sorry but that not acceptable when you're putting people's lives at risk.
Can I ask if you've ever lost someone you love because of a mistake made by a driver?
I'm sorry to have to say this so bluntly to you but migration status is not an excuse.
You should get lessons if you're unsure how to drive correctly and if you can't follow the local rules of the road you shouldn't be driving at all.
I lost both a classmate and an uncle due to car accidents. I nearly lost my brother.
The problem here is not what you know that you don't know. It is what you don't know that you don't know. You can believe yourself safe, when you aren't.