7 ms·
I strongly believe the nature of a society is best visualized through its traffic sense. Whether it's showing empathy, collaborating, cooperating, patience, dis
by cyberjunkie 7y ago
I strongly believe the nature of a society is best visualized through its traffic sense. Whether it's showing empathy, collaborating, cooperating, patience, discipline, following rules, the anything-will-do attitude, etc.
I'm expecting the sabotaging nature will have a ton of people consciously going out of the way to screw up everyone else.
- zweep 7y agoWell India has far more lunatic traffic but far fewer per capita murders than the US. What’s the conclusion?
- jlmorton 7y agoMurder rate per capita: ...in the US: 5.35 per 100k ...in India...: 3.22 per 100k
- Reason077 7y agoRoad traffic deaths per capita: ...in India: 22.6 per 100k ...in the US: 12.4 per 100k ...in the UK: 3.1 per 100k ...in Norway: 2.1 per 100k
- refurb 7y agoUnlike murder rate, per capita seems a terrible measure for traffic deaths.
- Reason077 7y agoRoad traffic deaths per 100,000 motor vehicles: India: 130.1 US: 14.2 UK: 3.4 Norway: 3.0
- LorenPechtel 7y agoThe best measure is per mile or per passenger mile. Per motor vehicle is far better than per capita, though.
- pacamara619 7y agoThat your statistics are skewed
- zweep 7y agoWhich statistics?
- cortesoft 7y agoThe US has a LOT of guns
- Jamwinner 7y agoI own a few of them, as do I cars. I have so far managed not to murder anyone with either. Whats your point? We also have a lot of crime and an individualist attitude, and some large unintergrated culture bubbles which likely contribute more. Murder is in the intent, not the tool.
- cortesoft 7y agoThe point is that you need both the intent + ability to carry out a murder. People like to act as if someone who wants to murder someone would just use a knife if they didn't have access to a gun, but that is simply not true. It is way easier to murder someone with a gun than a knife, both physically and psychologically. If someone has the intent to murder someone, it is much more likely to actually happen if they have a gun. Thus, more guns means higher murder rate.
- donw 7y agoExcept for the fact that doesn’t actually happen when you look at real-world data.
- jtms 7y agobad drivers make lousy murderers?
- topmonk 7y agoReported murders...
- ultrarunner 7y agoHow people respond to situations when they cannot communicate says a lot. I’m inclined to agree with you.
- cyberjunkie 7y agoAlso, how people choose to behave knowing their identities are concealed.
- raz32dust 7y agoThat's not what I found at all. Traffic is chaotic, but people in general are very cooperative. The cooperation just happens in an ad-hoc way rather than by traffic rules. Yes, there is a lack of discipline, but I don't think any society will behave differently if you put that many people in that small of a space.
- spectramax 7y ago> Traffic is chaotic, but people in general are very cooperative That's self-contradicting. If Traffic is chaotic, then people are either not cooperative or the rules are set but no one is following. If the rules are well architected, enforced and obeyed, then the traffic wouldn't be chaotic. What GP is saying makes sense to me - traffic sense tells a lot about the society. It exemplifies that developing nations have tough conditions, out of control population, limited resources and stiff competition; if you're a nice guy, you'll lose. I am sure many people in Mumbai would like to cooperate, but they are held back because of the aforementioned trap.
- raz32dust 7y agoIt is not contradicting, Like you yourself said, people being cooperative is not in itself enough for traffic to be not chaotic. You still need well architected rules and enforcement. It is also a function of desperation. If there's enough resources for everyone, it's easier to be nice. When there isn't enough for everyone, or when people feel that there isn't enough, things start to go south pretty quickly.
- spectramax 7y agoDefinitely, I agree.
- Izkata 7y agoThere's still the concept of "organized chaos" on top of that.
- jariel 7y ago
- sanmon3186 7y agoI "partially" disagree. In my view, civic sense has also a lot to do with resources per capita available. Whether it is Black Friday sales in the US or driving on crazy roads in India, people tend to save time and money by resorting to unruly behavior.
- risyachka 7y ago100% agree If people don't follow the rules, honk, etc they show they don't respect others, not only on the roads.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoThis does not line up with my experience. Where I live the government and the rules it hands down occupies basically the same spot in people's minds that god would occupy in a devout catholic of the middle ages. You would expect based on how everyone lives their lives that we would follow traffic rules to the letter. We don't. In traffic people (discounting the outliers, after all we're using broad brushes here) think for themselves, are generally assertive and more or less ignore rules and do what they see fit. Stops that would be yields if they had different lanes for left/right are treated like yields when going right. The 50-65 limits on divided highways are more or less ignored and people drive at whatever speeds they deem reasonable. Sometimes that's 65, sometimes that's 85. I'm sure this description is making some people clutch their pearls but for the most part things work great. So based on my anecdotal experience I'm firmly in the "no correlation" camp.