Bad Driving May Have Genetic Basis 449
Serenissima writes "Bad drivers may in part have their genes to blame, suggests a new study by UC Irvine neuroscientists. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it — and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. 'These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away,' said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex."
Re:New Jersey Drivers (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm? According to 2005 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), New Jersey is actually one of the safest states to drive in [businessweek.com]. New Jersey is number 10 on this list, behind Utah, Iowa, Georgia, Kentucky,Idaho, Nebraska,West Virginia, Indiana, and Maine.
Also interesting, but not directly related to New Jersey drivers, is an Allstate study [allstatenewsroom.com] of driver safety by city.
Re:First... define worse... (Score:3, Informative)
That's funny. They sound just like the drivers I know who always get into accidents.
Re:New Jersey Drivers (Score:2, Informative)
I went on holiday to Sicily last year and they drive like that. One minor difference - when another car is coming, they just stay there.
Re:New Jersey Drivers (Score:4, Informative)
Please, that's the least of your problems. Last time I visited everyone was on the wrong fucking side of the road!
Re:First... define worse... (Score:3, Informative)
That's naive. If an insurance company overprices risk, they'll lose the business. If they underprice the risk, they'll go broke. You're assuming that the folks building the risk models are stupid. That's not a high percentage assumption.
If what you assert is true, auto insurance companies should be making huge amounts of money. Here is the financials from Progressive insurance, a prominent player. They netted about 7%.
Hate them if you want. It's a competitive industry, and the numbers show that they're pricing the insurance at pretty close what it costs them to provide it.
Re:Chromosomes? (Score:3, Informative)
So what? How many men do you see driving minivans or SUVs and constantly turned around screaming at kids in the back instead of paying attention to the road ahead? This isn't sexism, it's a simple fact. I'm sure if you did a survey you'd also find that women talk on the phone in their car a lot more than men too. And how many men apply make-up in their cars while driving? Zero?
There's nothing sexist about noting that people of different sexes act differently. How many women drive crotch rockets at insane speeds? Just like the make-up thing is mostly confined to women (and maybe a few gay men), the crotch rocket thing is mostly confined to young men (they don't live to become old). And not many women are interested in writing open-source software in their spare time for free.
Re:My daughter is a lousy driver (Score:1, Informative)