ScienceDaily, October 28, 2009
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.
This gene variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor during activity. BDNF keeps memory strong by supporting communication among brain cells and keeping them functioning optimally. When a person is engaged in a particular task, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond.
Previous studies have shown that in people with the variant, a smaller portion of the brain is stimulated when doing a task than in those with a normal BDNF gene. People with the variant also don’t recover as well after a stroke. Given these differences, the UCI scientists wondered: Could the variant affect an activity such as driving?
“We wanted to study motor behavior, something more complex than finger-tapping,” said Stephanie McHughen, graduate student and lead author of the study. “Driving seemed like a good choice because it has a learning curve and it’s something most people know how to do.”
The driving test was taken by 29 people—22 without the gene variant and seven with it. They were asked to drive 15 laps on a simulator that required them to learn the nuances of a track programmed to have difficult curves and turns. Researchers recorded how well they stayed on the course over time. Four days later, the test was repeated.
Results showed that people with the variant did worse on both tests than the other participants, and they remembered less the second time. “Behavior derives from dozens and dozens of neurophysiologic events, so it’s somewhat surprising this exercise bore fruit,” Cramer said.
The gene variant isn’t always bad, though. Studies have found that people with it maintain their usual mental sharpness longer than those without it when neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and multiple sclerosis are present.
“It’s as if nature is trying to determine the best approach,” Cramer said. “If you want to learn a new skill or have had a stroke and need to regenerate brain cells, there’s evidence that having the variant is not good. But if you’ve got a disease that affects cognitive function, there’s evidence it can act in your favor. The variant brings a different balance between flexibility and stability.”
A test to determine whether someone has the gene variant is not commercially available.
“I’d be curious to know the genetics of people who get into car crashes,” Cramer said. “I wonder if the accident rate is higher for drivers with the variant.”
In addition to Cramer and McHughen, Paul Rodriguez, Laura Marchal-Crespo and Vincent Procaccio of UCI worked on the study, along with researchers from the University of Florida. The National Institutes of Health funded the study.
[Editor’s Note: The abstract for “BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism Influences Motor System Function in the Human Brain,” by Stephanie A. McHughen, et al., can be read here.
Original article
(Posted on October 30, 2009)
Comments
Not a racial point, but I think the insurance companies will spend whatever it takes to get a test for this gene perfected, so they know to charge drivers that have this gene variant more for car liability insurance. The only way this wouldn’t happen is if the variant “disproportionately affects” blacks and Hispanics, then the Powers That Be will shut down this research.
And not a single word about race. Allow me. I know a driving instructor. He says that Asians are the scariest of student drivers.
My own observations reveal that young black men drive recklessly and Asians drive too slowly. Maybe Asians have a gene that makes them cautious drivers.
I drive through the ghetto on my way to and from work, and often impatient blacks will simply tear out from a side street because they can’t wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic. I’m surprised none have been killed lately. They also step off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic when jaywalking.
The cab drivers I talked to in San Francisco used to speculate on why the Chinese were such abysmal drivers. It wasn’t whether they were bad — evidence was produced on hourly basis — but rather WHY. They were genuinely curious, not snarky or mean. Possible reasons included the shape of the asian eye interfering with peripheral vision.
No one disliked the Chinese; they just couldn’t fathom that level of incompetence behind the wheel.
I wonder if an actual reason has ever been found, then buried because of Politcal Correctness.
I live in the san gabriel valley, and when you see a slow toyota camry or honda accord in the distance, you can be assured it’s an asian driver. What gets me is a lot of these people aren’t driving far from home in familiar neighborhoods. The learning curve just isn’t there.
HapMap data:
Val66Met allele frequency:
European 17.5%, 16.7%, 17.8%, 17.5%
http://tinyurl.com/ykt58do
We start to learn how to drive at about five or so, by observing our parents. If Daddy came to America and learned to drive at age 30, he’ll never be a decent driver, and his kids learn from him.
Schoolteacher:
Thank you.
There is such a thing as a right to travel, but there is no such thing as a right to operate a motorized vehicle on public roads. Therefore, governments have a right to set drivers license standards as high as they want, as long as they’re not ridiculous.
In Europe, you have to do a lot more and pass many more tests before you get a drivers license, and should you violate certain terms of the license, it’s a much more harsh punishment than the United States.
I have had a leader of a very conservative group tell me to my face that I would just have to get used to people driving drunk. I obviously don’t believe that; I would consider drunk driving to be attempted murder.
Also, another good idea is to implement an Australian rule in the U.S. — in Australia, it is very expensive to register a car for a year, the equivalent of more than $1,000 U.S. But, liability insurance is part of that cost. In other words, you’re not getting a license without getting the insurance, too — none of this going to some street corner snake oil salesman, getting a month’s insurance, the dropping it after you successfully get the registration.
Along with that, there should be vastly increased, but secure and racially segregated, public transportation systems for those who couldn’t drive anymore. A prerequisite would be the return of racial segregation (forced) in neighborhood patterns.
I don’t know if the information contained herein is particularly revelatory or not.
Certainly natural hand-eye cooridination or lack thereof plays a part in driving skills. Also, degree of sobriety and one’s ability to stay mentally present-focused and resist distractions is a significant factor. These attributes are at least patrially hereditery, but on the other hand they can be improved with practice and study.
Whether they divide themselves up into racial attributes, I’m not that sure; but it wouldn’t really suprise me either.
I can say that many, many people I knew in Northern California used to moan and groan at how slow all the Vietnamese drove their cars, especially on the freeway. And I have to admit that it was true. It wasn’t uncommon to see them drive 40 miles an hour on a freeway with a 65 mile an hour limit where people on average drove 75 miles an hour.
So, like I said, it wouldn’t surprise me if driving skills broke themselves up into distinct racial catagories.
Val66Met allele frequency:
European 17.5%, 16.7%, 17.8%, 17.5%
Thanks Nooffensebut!
It’s interesting that Chinese are worse than Japanese. Also, it gels with my experience with African cab drivers; they are very good but scary (you might expect a wreck to happen, say, in downtown Chicago, but it doesn’t) while the Asians are cautious but get in wrecks more.
I wonder if there are sex differences. If it doesn’t show up in the gene stats, it would be because the gene expresses itself differently in men and women. It might explain why white men are considered better drivers than white women, although the latter still seem to outrank Asians.
Probably the only context where I’d prefer to be among blacks rather than Asians is behind the wheel in traffic. I see some of the most stupefyingly inexplicable behavior by Asian drivers on almost a daily basis, such as sitting at an intersection waiting for you nervously while you’re two blocks away then hitting the gas as you pass in front of them.
A couple of weeks ago I went through several minutes of waiting for an Asian driver to back out of a parking space at the mall so that I could get in. She just SAT THERE, for minutes on end. Then every time I’d give up and try to go around her she’d hit the gas and start to back up. Then she’d pull back in and sit there for a few more minutes.
I can double my money anytime by betting anyone riding with me that the driver in front of us who just executed a life-endangering or simply bizarre maneuver is Asian.
I live in a very large and multi-racial city. There is no question in my mind at all that Orientals are terrible drivers. Ninety-five times out of a hundred when I see a car being driven slowly and badly it is an Oriental behind the wheel. It has long baffled me. They are not lacking in intelligence but their driving is atrocious. I have long wondered if there wasn’t some natural or genetic explanation for this. I know a guy of Japanese descent. He is well-educated and smart. Worst driver I ever saw.
I’ve lived in San Francisco for over 20 years and I can vouch for the Chinese being shockingly inept drivers. I’ve given this phenomenon a lot of thought, since I see examples of it almost every day. My theory is it’s not lack of coordination (after all, they are champion ping pong players and gymnasts) or ignorance about the rules of the road, because they can pass the written test. I suspect it is their inherent timidity.
Being an effective driver requires making a quick evaluation of the traffic conditions and then acting decisively. I think their timidity and lack of assertiveness causes them to hold back when they should act. Their mistakes seem to be related to hesitancy and fear of making a mistake, which virtually guarantees the mistake. Their minds seem to go blank when they approach an intersection!
I really wonder how they pass their driver’s tests. It’s funny; even in politically correct San Francisco, everyone makes jokes and comments about the Chinese and their driving. It’s the only kind of ethnic joke you’ll hear.
Here in L.A. the Asians are legendary for their poor driving abilities, and in fact the first time I heard the term “DWA” - Driving While Asian - was from an Asian female (Chinese) remarking on how bad the majority of Asians were behind the wheel. Something else noteworthy is how poor mexicans (mestizos and indios) and other invaders are behind the wheel. They exhibit a lot of the same problems (not to as high a degree) as the Asians, as in driving slow. However, their impulsiveness makes them more dangerous in other ways, as in drunk driving (just like Asians, they can’t metabolize alcohol) and their low IQ’s and concomitant aggressiveness add to the mess. Anyhow, the poor abilities of the latinos behind the wheel does have me agreeing with those who theorize they are descended from Asians who came across the Bering Strait.
Blacks aren’t all that great either when it comes to driving, but they are nowhere near as bad as latinos or Asians. In average driving conditions, I don’t really worry if there are blacks on the road. But Asians and latinos can turn any type of road trip into an adventure rather quickly.
The tendency of ethnic groups to embrace Marxist ideology is also genetic. An article published in the online journal, physorg.com, confirmed that “… researchers found that most people in countries widely described as collectivist have a specific mutation within a gene regulating the transport of serotonin, a neurochemical known to profoundly affect mood.”
80 percent of the population of Asian nations “carry this so-called ‘short’ allele, or variant, of a stretch of DNA known as 5-HTTLPR.”
As China emerges as a world leader, its cultural tendency toward collectivism will most likely enhance the international drift towards socialism.
The article explained that, “Ancient cultures in Asia, Africa and Latin America highly exposed to deadly pathogens, they conjecture, may have tended toward collectivist norms in order to better combat disease.”
European cultures, however, are different.
“By contrast, in countries of European origin that prize self-expression and the pursuit of individual over group goals, the long or ‘L’ allele dominates, with only 40 percent of people carrying the ‘S’ variant.”
Source
DailyKenn.com
Kenn,
This article was referring to the study by Chiao and Blizinsky , which was not considering Marxism when it labeled certain countries as “collectivist.” Rather, these are societies that promote “collectivist social norms, such as conformity and parochialism,” such that these cultural values “serve an adaptive, ‘anti-psychopathology’ function.” In that sense, the Southern United States is more collectivist than the West.
In fact, Africans are more likely than Europeans to have the long “L” allele of 5-HTTLPR. Black South Africans have an allele frequency of 84% for the L allele.
Gotta back the consensus here. Asians are a tiny minority in my area, but they are by far the worst drivers. Especially the females. It is very odd to watch an Asian driving down a street with at least 5 feet clearance on both sides, and leaning forward with their face almost in the steering wheel and doing 5 miles an hour. They look like they are in fear of hitting a parked car which is a good distance from them.
I have a theory about blacks, who IMO are not good drivers, regardless of what the stats say. I have witnessed too many black caused mishaps and near mishaps to believe otherwise. A friend who works at a local box store has been hit (his car) in the parking area 3 times in the last couple of years. None had insurance. And just look at the cars that many blacks drive. They are dinged up everywhere. My theory is that blacks in many cases just take off after hitting another car. Also when they hit each other and neither are insured they just agree to drive away and not report the accident. This would tend to drastically lower the black caused accident stats since there would be no record of the accident.
In my many years on the road, it has been my experience that the best drivers out there by far are white males.
The blacks around here are the worst, by far. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that blacks are WORSE drivers than Asians if you can imagine that. Asians tend to be overly cautious and take forever to make decisions, blacks drive as if they have absolutely no regard for human life. They also have two speeds: incredibly slow and incredibly fast; they rarely obey a speed limit. I’ve noticed that they’re completely backwards in relation to the speed limit, actually. It’s not uncommon to see a black driver flying through a school zone, then get to the main highway and slow to a snail’s crawl.
The really egregious examples of bad Oriental driving that I’ve seen combine two factors: poor driving skills, either because they lack decent training or because they lack a sense of speed and distance, and an indifference to how much they are inconveniencing others. Bad enough that you can’t judge a turning radius and an illegal U turn becomes a three point, but doing it in the middle of the block on a busy commercial street is an insult to every one of the 20 other drivers who have to wait while you struggle to correct your misjudgement. But some people, and some cultures, don’t concern themselves with Others.
18 Anon: I agree that minor mishaps between Blacks or between Hispanics are very likely to be undercounted. No insurance, a suspended license or none at all, what is gained by calling the cops to report an accident? And as two groups with demonstrably low regard for others or for the law, it makes sense that they would have much higher accident rates than Whites, just like their homicide rates.
Racial reason for poor Asian driving is ridiculous.
If we consider the fact that the most Asiatic of Asians - the Mongols - the greatest horsemen the world have ever seen, capable of bringing down a marmot at a hundred yards with a well aimed arrow while still at full gallop - then the genetic reason posited for supposed poor Asian driving ability seems absurd.
The real reason? Most come from highly urbanized areas and have little driving experience. Also many of these highly urbanized Asians, have played few sports, and ball games - so physical coordination and hand eye coordination and situational awareness, is no doubt not as good as many Westerners.
21 — John Liu wrote at 10:48 AM on November 7:
If we consider the fact that the most Asiatic of Asians - the Mongols - the greatest horsemen the world have ever seen, capable of bringing down a marmot at a hundred yards with a well aimed arrow while still at full gallop - then the genetic reason posited for supposed poor Asian driving ability seems absurd.
This story is a myth. No Mongol was ever able to do this, and they certainly weren’t the greatest horsemen who ever lived. But myths endure. Lots of groups are claimed to have been the best ever, the Huns, etc. This is something that can’t ever be quantified anyway. However, the problems with Asian drivers may be due to their particular visuospatial processing which is good for computation, but maybe not so good for actual, quick movements in space, never mind seemingly not being able to predict the outcome of some of their movements / decisions quick enough to “get it right” when driving. Having ridden in cars with Asian friends, coworkers, it seemed that for more than a few of them, there was almost “too much going on” for them to keep track of. Some of you out there who have rode with Asians will understand what I mean, although the Asians don’t see it themselves. Asians get touchy over this, we all get touchy here and there over negative truths about ourselves or our own group, but people in areas with lots of Asians can’t help but notice the horrendous lack of skill among the majority of Asians behind the wheel. Visit Los Angeles or the nearby San Gabriel Valley. It’s incredible. Talk to anyone from an insurance company. Asians aren’t maliciously, intentionally bad like a high number of hispanic drivers, but they make so many boneheaded moves that cause problems and accidents that it cannot be denied. The latinos, especially Indios and Mestizos, constantly make dreadful moves in traffic, but also have incredible chips on their shoulders due to low brainpower. They are a lot more trouble. Blacks are problematic due to inattentiveness and general impulsiveness. I have to say that a very high percentage of non-whites in general seem to have no concern for others around them when doing certain things in traffic, whether driving very slow, changing lanes without fully checking to make sure it’s all clear or just pulling out in front of oncoming traffic when the approaching cars are too close to make it a safe move.
Yeah, there are bad white drivers too, but they are just not as a high percentage of the “market” when compared to Asians and others.
“Don’t take the car”
I did not deny that there is a problem with Asian drivers - I just don’t think the problem is a genetic one.
And you really have no evidence to say that it is.
As for the Mongol horsed archers - whether they really were the “best” or not is difficult to quantify, as you say, but they were incredibly good, and even today one can observe their skilled horsemanship.
But here is where your argument completely falls over:
“may be due to their particular visuospatial processing which is good for computation, but maybe not so good for actual, quick movements in space, never mind seemingly not being able to predict the outcome of some of their movements / decisions quick enough to “get it right” when driving ”
Have you seen Asian divers, Asian table tennis players, Asian badminton players, martial artists? It is precisely those sports which require those same ‘quick movement in space…. to predict outcome of movements’ that Asians excel in. And in boxing they are also not doing too bad - Manny Pacquiao is considered perhaps the greatest pound for pound boxer of all time.
Many Amren people seem to be ‘nature’ fundamentalists - they will never consider a possible environmental explanation - just as some extreme ‘nurture’ people will completely discount any possible genetic explanation of behaviour.
“European 17.5%, 16.7%, 17.8%, 17.5%
I guess that’s what explains why African Americans have the highest fatalities per billion miles driven, while “Asian” Americans have the lowest.
Here is a link showing data on traffic fatalities broken down by race, recorded 1999-2004, by the CDC and NHTSA
http://www.watchtheroad.org/809956.pdf
Asians have the lowest rate of fatalities per capita, per billion miles traveled, and per million trips.
They have the highest proportion of non-occupant (i.e pedestrian) fatalities too.
The only reason why so many of you believe that “Asians” (which is not even a race) are bad drivers is because of media conditioning, every time you see a bad “Asian” driver you remember it and it sticks.
My mistake. The link is here for general fatality rates:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/alcohol/Archive/ethnicity/ethnicity.html
The other provides statistics on what percentage of deaths are from non-occupants.
I live in Santa Monica and have to drive to downtown Los Angeles everyday to work. I shoot down Olympic Blvd, right through the middle of Korea Town and then hop a bit north as I get closer to work, going through Filipino Town. The Asians do have a very high level of incompetent drivers in their populations. One thing I have noticed a lot of Asians and Hispanic drivers do is that for some reason when getting into another lane of traffic, they simply cannot get in as the last car in line. If they come up on the last car in line they have to cut in front of it rather than just get in behind it. It is a bizarre behavior and I don’t think they realize how goofy they are when doing it but I have seen them cause accidents on the freeways and streets more than once doing this. I am sure that other Southern Californians can attest to this. It is rampant.
The Asian drivers also engage in a lot of passive - aggressive games to irritate people. Same thing they do in their city jobs downtown. I don’t work for the city, but I have to deal with city workers and the Asians are as guilty as the rest of the nonwhite crowd when it comes to doing things designed to irritate people, especially white people. I think that right now the nonwhites are feeling their oats and they’re getting even for the way Western Man towers above them in achievement. That’s the way someone put it in a column a few years ago, I just don’t remember the author. I think the races would be better off separated for the most part.
One more thing, I have no problem differentiating between the different Asian ethnic groups, not at all. It is in fact many Asians who have a problem differentiating between different white ethnic groups in my experience. The Korean gentleman says he has a hard time telling who is who, but in fact Koreans are very distinctive in their looks. I have worked with some Koreans and found them to more aggressive than Chinese or Japanese. Not in a bad way, just more toward what you find in some Europeans. They weren’t as reserved as Japanese.
I have seen lots of bad drivers. Southern California is full of them. Including bad white drivers. But a lot of Asian drivers aren’t fully competent is the only way I can think of putting it. The Hispanic and black drivers are more dangerous because of the wild things they do. They intentionally do a lot of crazy things.
“The only reason why so many of you believe that “Asians” (which is not even a race) are bad drivers is because of media conditioning, every time you see a bad “Asian” driver you remember it and it sticks.”
No. This person is missing the point. Asians are bad drivers but they are not wild drivers. There’s a difference. But they are poor drivers. They drive slow, cut people off, have a lot of fender benders, a lot. Ask anyone in the insurance industry. Asians are also a very small part of the population of the US as a whole. After reading the link to the ‘study’, one can’t help but wonder how underreported all “minority” statistics are when it comes to this type of thing, meaning anything negative. My own brother is a police officer and says that Asians are simply the worst drivers, but not dangerous. He considers latinos the most dangerous by far. It’s simply an observation on his part, and on apparently every other officers part.
“Asian” isn’t a race? Well, whites have been lumped together by the elites and you hypocritical non-whites for decades, so tough luck. Besides, Asians are a race, with different sub-groups, just like Caucasians are a race with different sub-groups. Asians have a good percentage of people talented in certain areas of math, but they are generally poor drivers in comparison with other groups. You have to learn to take the good truths with the bad truths. Or is that only for whites?
By the way, stating that Asians ” …have the highest proportion of non-occupant (i.e pedestrian) fatalities too,” is nothing to brag about. That means they hit a lot of pedestrians, which seems to be the norm in L.A., with lots of Asian and latino drivers hitting people in crosswalks all over town.
Manny Pacquiao is a great boxer, but he’s hardly the greatest of all time. As for table tennis, not a big sport around the rest of the world, really. Meanwhile the Chinese have 3 year olds in their ping pong academies going at it. It’s kind of funny yet cruel at the same time. My best memory of table tennis is the Chinese calling a Swede (Jan-Ove Waldner) the Michael Jordan of Table Tennis. They do give credit here and there, despite some thinking otherwise. Badminton is only big in Asia, although it’s a recreational activity at picnics and such in other parts of the world. Martial arts? Whites have done so well in Martial Arts and MMA that organizations like the UFC have been intentionally ignoring, not recruiting top white fighters in order to have more non-whites, so desperate are they to land “network” TV contracts, and the networks want non-white fighters. In the end, none of these sports have anything to do with driving. That’s as silly as some fighter pilots assuming that they are great drivers because they are hot-shot pilots. Then they go out and total a sports car. By the way, I think a very high percentage of Asians have superb gymnastic ability, and that requires a high degree of coordination and movement through space. But it isn’t driving a car. The proverbial apples and oranges situation.
A lot of Asian supremacists want to have it all their way, like Arthur Hu. They’ll say the areas in which they, on average, outperform whites are due to genetics. Areas in which whites, on average, outperform Asians are due to extraneous circumstances, certainly not anything in the genes. A lot is in the genes. A whole lot.
“Ask anyone in the insurance industry.”
‘Asians’ used to receive a discount for being good drivers until it was deemed racist and made illegal. And yes, people in the insurance industry are exactly the ones vouching for them.
For someone who supposedly opposes the mainstream media you sure believe a lot of things they tell you.
““Asian” isn’t a race? Well, whites have been lumped together by the elites and you hypocritical non-whites for decades, so tough luck. Besides, Asians are a race, with different sub-groups, just like Caucasians are a race with different sub-groups.”
‘Asian’ isn’t even equivalent to Caucasoid. Lumping Southeast Asians in with East Asians is like lumping in Africans with Caucasoids. Read Cavalli-Sforza’s studies.
‘East Asian’ with all of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Mongols together is like a grouping of North African, North Indian, European and Caucasus. Those are two separate races. Whites alone i.e predominantly R1a and R1b would be like O3a5 and O3a4 for East Asians.
“That means they hit a lot of pedestrians, which seems to be the norm in L.A., with lots of Asian and latino drivers hitting people in crosswalks all over town.”
No, it means THEY are the ones getting hit- unless you are reading the stats as 4-5 year old Asians driving into people.
