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New immigrants are safer drivers

Eug

Eug

Lifer
Study shows new immigrants are safer drivers

"The University of Toronto professor found that new immigrants to Ontario were less likely to be involved in “serious motor vehicle crashes” — those that lead to hospitalization — compared to long-term provincial residents."

I've always wondered about this. I had a friend who used to always complain about elderly and immigrant drivers, but never saw the irony in his complaints, as he was in more than one accident, and they were his own fault.

Yeah, it's damn annoying to be stuck behind a 70 old driver going at exactly the speed limit, but that doesn't mean s/he is going to crash.
 
I almost got into an accident when an immigrant driver ran a red light while talking on a cell phone. Luckily I was paying more attention than they were.
 
This is because they rarely go above 35mph, which is NOT safer.

One ran a red arrow and hit my dad head-on. She was going about 25mph, he was going 45mph.

If you can't safely travel the speed limit you should not be on the road.
 
Likely due to the fact that a lot of immigrants come from places where if you get into an accident... you will get a beat down by the police if you do not have bribe money.
 
UofT needs to get out of the city and try driving around Brampton, Ontario. Very high immigrant population, abysmal driving stats. The worst place to drive in Ontario in terms of accidents according to the insurance companies.
 
< Spots a 20 year old import >

< The car has it's 4~way flashers on >

< trundling along at the mind boggling SPEED of t w e n t y miles an hour >

< Brown knuckles and Black Hair, the only body parts visible above the sill>


....


< leaves the thread, because anything said at this point would just be racist, xenophobic, and possibly even misspelled >
 
SpatiallyAware said:
This is because they rarely go above 35mph, which is NOT safer.
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That is of course bull.

If you can't safely travel the speed limit you should not be on the road.
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Maybe not, but I don't see how that's worse than some yahoo going 50 km/hr over the speed limit.

NetWareHead said:
Now if only they could carry auto insurance.
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Mandatory in Canada.

mmntech said:
UofT needs to get out of the city and try driving around Brampton, Ontario. Very high immigrant population, abysmal driving stats. The worst place to drive in Ontario in terms of accidents according to the insurance companies.
Click to expand...
Pretty much all of Toronto and much of the near GTA has a huge immigrant population.

I personally find downtown Toronto more dangerous to drive in than Brampton or Scarborough.
 
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maybe depends on teh type of immigrant. Here, the majority of immigrants arrive from countries where cars were quite rare only a decade ago, and very few people had them. Also, the driving laws, signage, regulations etc are completely ass-backwards.

They arrive here and learn to drive for the very first time, often later in life. I say this because I don't beleive it to be a fault of the individual, simply that they come from places where there is either no driving culture, or it is very new--so you end up with lots of inexperienced people--also the "me first" attitude is the only way to get anything done. This does not translate well to the road.
 
Whoever said that has never seen a NYC taxi.
Perhaps it's different in Canada.

Driving in downtown Toronto is a frigging nightmare.
 
Not sure what you mean by that, but if I understand you correctly...

Yeah, Toronto taxi drivers are nuts, and yeah a lot of Toronto taxi drivers are immigrants.

However, I'm talking about the regular immigrant family driving their own kids to school or whatever. If I were to stereotype, I'd say that the worst group in terms of dangerous driving is males under age 25, of any ethnic background.
 
Eug said:
Not sure what you mean by that, but if I understand you correctly...

Yeah, Toronto taxi drivers are nuts, and yeah a lot of Toronto taxi drivers are immigrants.

However, I'm talking about the regular immigrant family driving their own kids to school or whatever. If I were to stereotype, I'd say that the worst group in terms of dangerous driving is males under age 25, of any ethnic background.
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I think driving in Toronto would be 100x safer if they got rid of those damn streetcars. This is not the 1930's.
 
Eug said:
Originally Posted by NetWareHead Now if only they could carry auto insurance.

Mandatory in Canada.
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Ha ha, mandatory means nothing. Come to California and see how many "new immigrants" have insurance that is mandatory.

They even stopped asking for licenses at DUI check points because so many "new immigrants" were getting their cars impounded for not having one, which are also madatory to drive.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cal...rry-brown-puts-limits-on-dui-checkpoints.html
 
Just out of curiosity, how many horrible anecdotes does it take to make a statistically significant sample size instead of just racism-fueled confirmation bias?

My best one is the lady at the DMV who failed her written test, bitched about already having taken it 6 times, walked out to the parking lot, got in her van and drove off.

Second best was the 11-year old who drove the car to the grocery store to run an errand. (The cops were waiting for him when he came out.)

I guess I could imagine a nonimmigrant pulling a stunt like that, but I've never seen it.
 
Spg1 said:
Ha ha, mandatory means nothing. Come to California and see how many "new immigrants" have insurance that is mandatory.

They even stopped asking for licenses at DUI check points because so many "new immigrants" were getting their cars impounded for not having one, which are also madatory to drive.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cal...rry-brown-puts-limits-on-dui-checkpoints.html
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Glad I don't live in LA then.


dave_the_nerd said:
Second best was the 11-year old who drove the car to the grocery store to run an errand. (The cops were waiting for him when he came out.)

I guess I could imagine a nonimmigrant pulling a stunt like that, but I've never seen it.
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Around here it's usually the farmers' kids going on a joyride, for something like that. (The farmers here are usually not new immigrants.)

YMMV.
 
SpatiallyAware said:
This is because they rarely go above 35mph, which is NOT safer.

One ran a red arrow and hit my dad head-on. She was going about 25mph, he was going 45mph.

If you can't safely travel the speed limit you should not be on the road.
Click to expand...

So what you are saying is if she ran the red arrow going 45mph she would not of hit your dad head on?

In this case it doesn't matter how fast she was going. She ran a RED LIGHT that caused the accident.
 
in my experience immigrants who learn to drive later in life often never feel comfortable behind the wheel. while they may drive cautiously, that doesnt make them 'safer'
 
Toronto's streets become very unsafe when Canada's Worse Drivers are driving there. That's some scary stuff right there, I don't know how those people got their license to begin with.
 
I gotta see that show...

Here's my one example that fit that stereotype that the Toronto study debunks:

I was driving in a snowstorm from Toronto to London, ON when I saw a car right in front of me spin out of control into the snowbank. Luckily it was deep snow, and it was like the car drifted into a giant pillow. No obvious serious damage that I could see, and the woman inside seemed totally fine. The driver side airbag had deployed though.

So, I ran over to the car, and helped her out of the car, and then brought the new immigrant Korean woman to my car and kept my car running with the heat on while we waited for the police, etc. It turns out she had only been in North America (Buffalo) for less than a year and only recently learned how to drive.

The paramedics arrived and wanted to check her out, and started asking a few questions. I mentioned that her airbag had deployed so it might have been a significant jolt. She said no it was no big deal. The airbag had not deployed this time. It had deployed a month earlier in her last accident. 😱 The look on the paramedic's face (and probably mine too) was priceless.
 
I would be curious if the statistic holds up for both legal and illegal immigrants. I am guessing not.

-KeithP
 
KeithP said:
I would be curious if the statistic holds up for both legal and illegal immigrants. I am guessing not.
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I would imagine the study only includes legal immigrants with valid drivers' licences.

Furthermore, I suspect the number of illegal immigrants in Canada is much, much lower on a percentage basis, than in the US.
 
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