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The 10 countries with the world's worst drivers
Traffic is an inevitable part of travel. Angry motor scooters in Rome, pileups in Los Angeles and snarls in Cairo conspire to throw our best-laid plans into chaos. Doug Lansky feels your pain. In his upcoming book The Titanic Awards, a compendium of the world's worst travel mishaps, he's compiled the following writeup and list of the top ten worst countries for driving.
When I rented a car in Napoli, the manager at the Hertz office told me "Driving here is like a video game. You just have to relax, stop thinking, and feel it in your stomach." The traffic signals were especially tricky as the red, yellow and green colored lights were obeyed no more than Christmas decorations. Red lights were run as a matter of decent driving.
It's not just Naples -- travelers across the planet have griped about the quality of driving abroad. According to a survey of over 2000 people from 80 different countries, I wasn't the only one who found it challenging. The percentages below are the voting results of our survey of the worst drivers in the world. Disagree with these results? Take the new survey at TitanicAwards.com. For more fun survey results and other "Worsts of Travel" tales, check out the book, The Titanic Awards (Perigee, May 4, 2010).
Italy 12.7%
India 9%
China 8.6%
Egypt 6.8%
Egypt 6.8%
France 4.2%
Vietnam - 3.7%
Thailand 3.5%
United States 3.4%
Indonesia 2.9%
United States 3.4%
Indonesia 2.9%
Mexico 2.2%
Filed under: Egypt, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, France, Italy, Mexico, United States, Hong Kong
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
whiskers May 5th 2010 3:43PM
The first clip is not from Italy, as per Youtube page.
Also, Russia should be on that list. And while this is a list of "worst" and not "dangerous" drivers, Jamaica should deserve an honorable mention. They may not be bad drivers over there but they sure drive dangerously.
LSRW May 6th 2010 10:50AM
What exactly is the difference between being a bad drive and being a dangerous driver? Surely by definition a 'dangerous' driver is a 'bad driver? Is it even possible to put yourself or others in danger through what you do behind the wheel and not be a 'bad' driver?
whiskers May 6th 2010 11:05AM
Bad drivers are those who don't know what is going on around them, who don't know the dimensions of their cars, who ignore stop signs, cut you off, try to squeeze over the curb, text/talk on the phone or get distracted and don't pay attention to the road in general. To give you an example of dangerous but not necessarily bad drivers - Jamaica. From my short experience there, the drivers constantly tailgaite each other, pass on the other side - but they do so in full control of the vehicle and they seem to know what to do in emergency situations. When tailgated, they pull to the side to let the guy behind them pass and when they see a car passing another car and driving head on towards them, they also know to pull to the side (well, duh) - instead of getting panicky and honking like crazy.
My definiton of 'bad' is not being in full control of the vehicle and doing stupid things like driving on the sidewalk, while by 'dangerous' I mean engaging in risky / aggressive driving behavior while still knowing your surroundings.
jenesis227 May 15th 2010 8:55AM
Lebanon. No lights. No painted lines. No speed limits. No pedestrian crossings. No laws. It's total mayhem, but you know what? I was there for two weeks and I didn't see any auto accidents. It's completely amazing. While it appears to be extremely chaotic, the drivers are so completely aware of their surroundings and know how to maneuver in this place. Beirut and Monsurieh El Metn are beautifully humbling places to visit. The people are wonderful and very giving. This is what the news should bring to us, not only stories about horrible things that may take place in certain places. Don't judge until you've been there!