Teaching someone to drive is really damn scary.

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BoomerD

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
66,302
14,715
146
I'm glad I don't have to drive in the bay area any more...This is one of the LAST things needed in the SF Bay area...yet another Chinese female who can't drive...driving a car.

With a bit of luck, she'll smash up FBB's car and revert back to public transportation.
 
E

eLiu

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2001
6,407
1
0
Is this chick a moron? Some of the things in here are just... unreasonable for anyone with any degree of common sense. Even tards from China. Like not thinking running someone over w/a car can be deadly.

So many international students I've run into are utterly lacking in common sense & courtesy.

edit: But I've also met plenty that behave like functional humans. So it's not impossible, meaning that the rest of them are idiots.
 
irishScott

irishScott

Lifer
Oct 10, 2006
21,562
3
0
eLiu said:
Is this chick a moron? Some of the things in here are just... unreasonable for anyone with any degree of common sense. Even tards from China. Like not thinking running someone over w/a car can be deadly.

So many international students I've run into are utterly lacking in common sense & courtesy.

edit: But I've also met plenty that behave like functional humans. So it's not impossible, meaning that the rest of them are idiots.
Click to expand...

Large part of that is, honestly, how awesome America is. Gas is relatively cheap here, has been for almost a century. Almost everyone owns a car by necessity and driving/buying one's first car is an American right-of-passage and an expected skill. If you can't drive a car here, you're basically seen as a child. We grow up riding in cards to boot, which by proximity exposes us to much of the technique.

In other nations gas is a lot more expensive and people largely use public transportation, or in cases such as China the culture/average income is such that having a car is more of a status symbol than a necessity. Tons of people in China simply don't have cars for one reason or another, and women are culturally discouraged from driving.

Not that this is an excuse, people like the woman in the OP apparently lack basic reflexes and alertness that one would think you'd need to not trip down the stairs every morning. She shouldn't be driving on a main road, period.

OP: Find a large, empty parking lot and practice there. Get some soft cones that you can safety run into/over and have her take repeated runs at them until she can stop in an appropriate manner.
 
Dr. Detroit

Dr. Detroit

Diamond Member
Sep 25, 2004
8,532
935
126
So she can fly a fighter plane but can't drive a car?

or was it a helicopter?

As always posting in a FBB thread makes me dumb-er.
 
N

nanette1985

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2005
4,209
2
0
All 4 of my kids are good drivers. No way was I going to teach them myself. Professional driving teachers all around. Saved my sanity.
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,864
31,359
146
fuzzybabybunny said:
I'm teaching my 25 year old roommate how to drive. She's from China, has never driven anything, and she's learning how to do it on my stick shift to boot.
Click to expand...


dude.

you're breaking every fucking rule. You'll be lucky to finish this week alive.

R.I.P. FBB.

snorgle.

:(
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,864
31,359
146
fuzzybabybunny said:
I like a challenge? At first I figured "how tough can it be?" I was wrong.

She's got a professional teacher lined up for next week. I think I'm just going to let them take the risk.

I had to explain to her today that if you hit a pedestrian or bicyclist with a 2,000lb car, even at 15mph, and proceeded not to brake immediately afterwards and rolled over them, that you would kill them. She at first didn't get it.
Click to expand...

Lemme guess: her "pro" instructor is also Asian? probably just learned how to drive last year? And taught themselves?

I know you and I live in the same area, relatively, so I'm going to tell you what I've learned over the last couple of years.

This area, especially in East Bay, is basically 90% Asian/Indian people. A great, great deal of them are newly-arrived students, postdocs, family, immigrants, whatever.

I never understood the "Asian driver" stereotype until moving out here. What I have learned, and how I have explained this to myself, is that it certainly isn't a race thing--it's obviously not genetic. My theory is that for many of these people, they come from countries and regions where for generations, no one owned a car, and many of them still don't. The older people are only now learning how to drive, and of course this tends ot make things worse, for various reasons. They come from places where there are no rules--whether it be on the roads or as pedestrians in regular commerce. A line (queue); the concept of "waiting your turn?" lmao. not gonna happen.

So, what happens here, is that people of various generations from these regions move over here, have to learn how to drive, and have very little resources and experience behind them. From working with a lot of such immigrants, it seems to me that they are also a bit insular--easy when you have a very large, established population of your culture waiting for you on this side.

Now--I know a few Chinese people, about the age of your roommate, also needing to learn how to drive, never having driven before. After taking a few private lessons from another "pro" Chinese individual, it is typical to fail the test a few times. One colleague, after his 3rd failed test, went to another DMV--in Hayward. Apparently, it is heavily-traded info within the Chinese community here that one must go to the Hayward DMV to pass your driving test. it seems to hold true, as these people get their licenses, despite the continuing penchant for driving the wrong way on one way streets, merging into oncoming traffic without the slightest hesitation, parking sideways along a sidewalk.

Also, it appears that the "rule" here is that U-Turns (oddly, the most common driving maneuver) do not need to yield for anyone, ever.

It is quite the circus on our streets over here.
 
amdhunter

amdhunter

Lifer
May 19, 2003
23,332
249
106
fuzzybabybunny, you are the Asian equivalent of an Indian on this forum. You know that right?
 
Imp

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
18,828
184
106
Find. A. Real. Good. Professional. Instructor.

I went to 2 driving schools: one was a cheap Asian guy who would give you a certificate saying you spent 20 hours or something in the classroom to lower insurance, one actually made you site for 20 hours in class before giving you significant time behind the wheel. I went to the second one first, then just wanted more supervised driving.

Expensive, real one was structured and I actually use most of the stuff they taught on the road. Oh, and if she crashes, it's not your car!
 
J

jingramm

Senior member
Oct 25, 2009
779
2
76
So this is the girl who has no job (or works as a part-time accountant) on a work visa?

How does part-time accountant get a work visa?
 
K

kyrax12

Platinum Member
May 21, 2010
2,416
2
81
fuzzybabybunny said:
I'm teaching my 25 year old roommate how to drive. She's from China, has never driven anything, and she's learning how to do it on my stick shift to boot.

We've got the starting down ok. But man, it's scary on the road. And back in the day I would jump my car, drive way too fast, etc.

1. She doesn't know that you need to start stopping well in advance of something, so she tends to come to abrupt stops (working on it).

2. She doesn't have a habit of looking back and forth at an intersection, so there's been a couple times at first when she makes a half-hearted stop, but she doesn't check for traffic - she just stops and starts again - doesn't turn her head to actually look. I didn't expect this at first and luckily we were in a quiet neighborhood at night and I was looking at how her head *wasn't* moving.

3. Reversing the car. Oh god, where do I start. Doesn't know to look back, doesn't know to check her mirrors, etc.

4. Parking. She can't aim my little Honda Fit with any degree of accuracy.

5. Takes her eyes off the road for a long time when moving. Today she was driving at 20mph and she looked down at the shifter knob for like 4 seconds straight. At this time we drifted right and I had to move the steering wheel for her before we clipped a parked truck.

Holy shit, I really gotta start at square zero. I guess this is what happens when you've got someone who has traditionally taken public transportation or walked everywhere for their entire life and has never driven... well, anything (go-carts, bicycles, uhh..... video games)
Click to expand...

does video games help driving skills to an extent?
 
zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,864
31,359
146
darkswordsman17 said:
This. If for some reason its a desperate need that she has mobility, tell her to get a fucking moped.
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no way, man. what a wasted opportunity.


OP: offer her chauffeur service in exchange for BJs.

It's the only way; and you must convince her of this, for humanity's sake.
 
zanejohnson

zanejohnson

Diamond Member
Nov 29, 2002
7,054
17
81
how many turn signal it take to cross 8 lanes o traffic? this many? good luck everyone else!
 
M

Mr. Pedantic

Diamond Member
Feb 14, 2010
5,027
0
76
Get her to watch what you do. From what you've said I would think the biggest problem isn't the coordination of eyes and foot and brain, it's not knowing what to do to be able to control the car properly.
 
oogabooga

oogabooga

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2003
7,806
3
81
Amen, I hope never to have to do it again. I taught my younger sibling how to drive and it scared the crap outta me.
 
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