Feature
Driving while Asian
by Pamela Stirling
Due to an inadvertent editing error, the satirical observation on flashing headlights in this article was published unattributed. See “Playing Fair”, February 6, 2010.
They have become the common cause for complaint on our roads, usually prefaced with an expletive, but are Asian drivers really as bad as their reputation suggests?
Every driver in New Zealand is an idiot. We know that. It comes up at every intersection. “What are they waiting for? Why don’t they just go? Come on, go, go, go, go, GO!”
And so the irritation with the driving culture of some of the recent influx of migrants has to be looked at in context. “DWA” – Driving While Asian – is just the latest in a very wide range of supposed traffic misdemeanours out there.
Yet the impact of the massive immigration boom on New Zealand driving culture is not entirely imaginary. Consider the use of headlights. For the last 10 years at least, a quick flash of headlights has meant, “You go first: be my guest.” The other driver would give you a grateful wave. But in much of the world – especially Asia and India, the driving homeland of a large proportion of New Zealand’s recent immigrants – flashed headlights may mean, “I should rather that I and my grandmother and all my family died a tortured, meaningless death than yield to you.” People in those cultures flash their high beams as a warning that they are about to run a light, accelerate to cut you off or are coming the wrong way down a one-way road. Flash your headlights at an intersection in Auckland now and everybody looks nervous …
But are drivers from Asia really a risk on the roads? Crash statistics show that in non-fatal injury accidents, the number of drivers with overseas licences jumped from 414 in 2001 to 619 in 2002. The number of crashes in which the fact that the driver was from overseas was considered by the attending police officer to have contributed to the crash rose from 81 in 2001 to 114 in 2002.
And yet the percentage of crashes where there was a “foreign driver” factor is still only 1.2 percent. Despite that, two district court judges have called for tighter controls on overseas drivers. And the Land Transport Safety Authority, in a report on overseas drivers this year, noted “there is increasing concern being raised about the behaviour of overseas drivers on New Zealand roads. The concern arises from the belief that they are poorly equipped to cope with the transition to driving in New Zealand vis-à-vis conditions in their home countries and as a result, they are a potential hazard to themselves and other road users.”
The LTSA has “recognised an urgent requirement to rectify this situation”. The priority is to ensure that road-safety information – including the news that New Zealand has a unique give-way rule when turning left – is in the hands of overseas drivers before they start driving on New Zealand roads. Only now is the Driving Safely in New Zealand brochure being translated into Chinese.
Research in February by the LTSA reveals that many new overseas drivers are involved in or narrowly avoid accidents. But there is an important distinction between drivers. Migrants are far more responsible and motivated to conform to New Zealand road rules than international students. The researchers found that some of the student males in particular found their road incident stories “humorous or just casually shrugged them off as part of the transition process”. Some quotes:
“Three months ago I do 80km in a 50km zone because I don’t see the speed camera sign and I get a $300 fine – $300, oh my God!”
“The first time I drove my car I drove around Queen St and I drove into another car, but it is easy to drive here, easier than in Korea.”
“My friend, he have an accident with some Maori people and he just give them $2000 in cash. He does not want the police involved.”
In contrast, say the researchers, “the migrant respondents generally found incidents where they had broken the road rules or put themselves or others at risk to be emotionally stressful”.
“I already sat my New Zealand test as I want to be safe for the people and myself.”
“I drove very slowly at first and the car behind me honked; I get pain in my legs and shoulders from worry.”
The most important thing to get across to international students? You cannot drive without a licence. “Getting over the cultural problem of international students believing it is all right to drive without a licence or simply buy a licence is the biggest problem,” says Inspector John Kelly, manager of operations in the road-policing support office of the Commissioner of Police. “The ability to buy fake driver’s licences through the Internet is very, very easy.”
Detective Tim Chao of the Asian Crime Squad reports that fake Chinese licences are being made here – the price has dropped from $500 a few years ago to $150. But police now have ID checking guides, reports Kelly, and “the Chinese Embassy are quite anxious to co-operate because they see the lives of Chinese citizens and New Zealand citizens put at risk”.
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