> The only traffic that actually poses a regular challenge because of their erratic movements and tendency to step into the road without looking are American tourists on foot...
Was that really necessary? The racial stereotype detracts from your your argument, and frankly, one erratic pedestrian looks the same as another to a fast moving cyclist, much as one erratic cyclist looks the same as another to a driver.
It's not a stereotype, it's a very real an observation. I'm not a particularly "fast moving" cyclist (stereotype much?), I ride at a leisurely pace (Amsterdam, remember?), so I have plenty of time to observe what happens around me.
The accents are unmistakable as they apologize or otherwise verbally react whenever I have to brake hard and/or swerve to avoid them.
Well I bicycle commute to central London, and I can assure you that the clueless tourists are a fixture, and evenly distributed among nationalities and races.
Maybe it's a stereotype and it definitely doesn't apply to everyone but I've never seen so much confusion as on american roads. I'm from Italy and we're routinely made fun of for the mess that is our traffic, the reality though is that in Italy it is way more predictable and correct, blinkers are always used for example, than in SF where I've lived for the past 5 years. Italy has very few miles of bicycle lanes and yet most people don't use an helmet.
As I ride around town on a bike, there are all sorts of people that either just don't look when crossing, or look at the sky when moving sideways on a lane, or simply cross lanes reserved for bikes with the idea that pedestrians always have precedence.
Many cyclists are also guilty of the same types of sins by stopping in the middle of the street without so much as moving on the side or they are simply not capable of riding a bike in a city or they just perform U turns without looking at oncoming traffic. A friend of mine unfortunately died on a bike here in SF, was it because she wasn't wearing an helmet? Nope, it was because she turned left without looking and a food truck ran over her. She was the first and only fatality for bike accident last year.
When I passed my Driving License test here in SF the examiner told me that it's usually the americans that gave her the most troubles while europeans tended to always pass at the first try.
So maybe it's a stereotype but it seems to me that the american government went out of their way to try to protect pedestrians and defend cyclists with the result that they now walk around without their brain sparing the necessary few cycles to keep themselves safe on the street.
EDIT:
A funny thing that I've seen happening only here are cars that go through half of a cross-road and when they see you coming they just stop in the middle occupying the whole lane and forcing you to try to stop in a short space. If they went through instead of stopping there would have been no issues. This happens to me so often that I can't help laughing at it every time I see it.
I've been to Florence for 6 months and traffic there is much more chaotic that what I'm used to at home (Poland). But it's also much safer. People rarely use turn signals (except buses and taxis) but that just makes everybody really observe what the other drivers are doing. Generally divers seem to really pay attention more to what's around them and adjust their behavior.
Another amazing things are bicycles and scooters navigating through narrow streets filled with pedestrians apparently totally safely and without being cursed at.
See, here you seem to be generalizing from "my experience with traffic in SF" to "drivers in the US".
For what it's worth, I found drivers in the Bay Area to be more timid and hesitant (and therefore more unpredictable) than anywhere else I've driven in North America.
It's definitely a culture! In america although, the concept of race still persists everywhere, including government forums which split people's choices into appearance strains and not ethnicities or cultures.
America has no single government and is a huge mixture of cultures, from Canadians to Argentinians. I hate the fact that the USA has no proper demonym in English.
> America has no single government and is a huge mixture of cultures, from Canadians to Argentinians. I hate the fact that the USA has no proper demonym in English.
Hi, I am an Argentinian. While in Spanish the word "americano" means that you were born somewhere in The Americas, in the English language the word "american" means that you were born in the USA (AKA: America).
It happens a lot that words which are quite similar mean different things in different languages. Let's just embrace and understand these differences.
In the English language the word American has more than one meaning. The most prevalent is of course the gentilic, but one of the other meanings is indeed "being native or inhabitant of the American continent."
The big problem with this word is that, being USA as influential in the western culture as it is, it helps corrupting the corresponding word in the languages that do have a proper gentilic like French and Spanish. Also, it promotes ignorance among the ignorants (I've met US people thinking America is just and only the country) without a tangible benefit.
Was that really necessary? The racial stereotype detracts from your your argument, and frankly, one erratic pedestrian looks the same as another to a fast moving cyclist, much as one erratic cyclist looks the same as another to a driver.