The Governor’s Highway Safety Association has just released a report entitled “Closing the Circle” [download pdf here]. The “study,” funded entirely by State Farm Insurance, is all about the ethnic outreach, baby. Why? Because non-whites need more highway safety more than whites, apparently.
Motor vehicle crashes are a public health threat for all Americans. However, the threat is more pronounced among multicultural groups who are disproportionately killed in traffic crashes. A recent report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that 6.8 percent of Native American deaths, from all causes, were attributable to motor vehicle traffic crashes, and more than 4.7 percent for Hispanics or Latinos. For the non-Hispanic White population, the percentage of those dying from traffic crashes was just below 1.6 percent, and for African Americans and Asians and Pacific Islanders, the percentages were 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.
Why would anyone want to go there? But go there they did . . .
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children ages 3 to 6 and 8 to 14 in the United States. African American children ages 4 to 7 have the lowest restraint use among children; an estimated 26 percent are unrestrained. According to the National Survey of the Use of Booster Seats (NSUBS), Hispanic children under 13 have lower restraint use rates (use of child safety seats, booster seats, and seat belts) than non-Hispanic children. NSUBS also found that child seat use rates tended to be higher among White and Asian non-Hispanic children and lower among African American non-Hispanic children. These statistics are especially troubling when you consider that the Census Department predicts that the population of minority children is expected to grow from 44 percent in 2008 to 62 percent in 2050.
So what is it about non-whites that makes non-whites more accident prone? For that, you’ll have to head down to the appendix (page 24) to learn how to properly stereotype any given ethnic group. For example, did you know that “the African American community is noted for a long history of respecting elders”? Or that Asian Americans have a “respect for higher education and the professions”? For Latinos “fatalism is part of mindset.”
Still, those aren’t driving safety risk indicators, are they? So give us a clue: what specific ethnic/cultural problems are we talking about? Surely we shouldn’t spend millions sending messages when we don’t know what messages to send. And we can’t know what messages to send until we know the root causes of the safety differential.
Of interest in determining the problem among various multicultural groups in a state, information can be gathered on race, Latino/Hispanic origin, alcohol involvement, and the driver’s record (year/month of last and first crash; suspension; conviction; previous recorded crashes, suspensions and speeding convictions; as well as previous other harmful motor vehicle convictions.)
Uh-oh. Are the esteemed eight-member panel, including Vicki P. Knox of Mother Against Drunk Driving (MADD), saying that ethnic drivers are more likely to be drunk drivers? ‘Cause you can’t say that, can you? Oh yes they can!
Culture also affects how people view the use of alcohol. In some cultures, drinking among youth is acceptable and may even be encouraged. Drinking patterns also differ within an ethnic group. Within the Asian/Pacific Islander multicultural group, drinking is prohibited for those from Islamic backgrounds (Indonesians, Burmese); while some Japanese have developed business oriented drinking patterns.
Culture may also affect how members of an ethnic group view law enforcement. ASPIRA noted that some new immigrants may have had negative experiences with law enforcement in their home countries and may not view law enforcement in the U.S. in a positive light.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a Glenn Beckian commentator, suggesting that the government wants to intrude into every aspect of its citizens’ lives. Even though this study does suggest that government safety advocates have a look inside the family structure. [Remember: it’s all about the children!]
Finally, the Berkeley Center recommends an examination of parental behavior, which can greatly affect youth behavior, with traffic safety behaviors often being modeled (or not modeled) over generations. A lack of knowledge or misperception about risks can lead to non-use of seat belts or impaired driving.
For me, fiscal conservative that I am, the really worrisome bit is this, under the section “USE FUNDING”:
The Washington State Traffic Safety Commission has used funding as a way to gain access and trust among Native American populations. Even though the Bureau of Indian Affairs highway safety office manages funds for Native American nations, Native American groups have received direct grants from the WTSC. This tactic has helped build confidence and rapport particularly with tribal police who have sovereignty on Indian Reservations.
So there’s a direct connection between taxpayer handouts to ethnic groups and highway safety. Who knew?
Meh, the stat I find fascinating is the increase in women being busted for DUI. Where are these ladies when I want to party?
I don’t see a problem with facts. If those numbers are real then where is the racism? People have to be able to see there forces and weakness and to learn from it. Truth! (there is only one race, the human race! :)
agree with grandcharles above. you can talk about race/ethnicity without “playing the race card”.
if you want to reduce accidents/fatalities you look at the people and factors involved – you don’t assume that one policy or safety campaign will work for everyone. it’s called pragmatism.
Lower rates of seat belt usage among non-Whites is a real issue. Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon had a good article about this after the death of Kansas City Chiefs player Derrick Thomas. I can’t find the article on the Post site now, but it’s reprinted here:
http://www.bam.usmc.mil/BLOGS/2000/03-30.pdf
He writes:
“I’m trying to digest the federal study that says African Americans and Hispanics are a lot less likely to buckle up than whites. The only thing I can think of, lame as it is, is that whenever I was shamed into buckling up in the past, I felt weak or vulnerable in a way I didn’t like. I think that feeling is dangerously common among black men, that anything that suggests vulnerability is something many of us instantly reject.”
More recently, another Post columnist wrote about African-American youth being killed in larger numbers than white kids as a result of not wearing seat belts:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/22/AR2007112201312.html
So, this is a real issue and any efforts to address the situation should be applauded.
Do you really believe that culture has nothing to do with risk factors?
And you disagree with considering parental involvement as a factor?
And you believe that risk factors are the same for everyone, regardless of circumstances?
Uh, ok.
@ Andy D:
They’re probably being booked for DUI, then sleeping it off in the slammer next to a 450 lb. mustached she-male named Bertha. And rightfully so.
I personally think that immigrants from other countries with more…um…liberal traffic rules (both written and unwritten) are bringing their habits (which are probably considered normal in their home country, but are ignorant or even illegal in North America) here when they emigrate. Then, as they continue their bad driving habits while raising their kids in North America, their kids are watching. And “learning”. And so, the cycle continues. A stereotype is born.
So begins the Limbaugh and Beck style of news reporting. The race baiting has to stop. I dont see anything wrong with reporting information based on race if it can be used to help people. The fact that Black Americans dont use seatbelts as much as other races doesnt surprise me. It is very important to remember that less than 50 yrs ago in this country police were used against Blacks who wanted nothing more than the same protections under the law that other Americans enjoy. Ever heard of the Tuskegee experiment? It always strikes me as odd that people who have no first hand knowledge of someone else other than the news media or a friend of a friend seem to have so much insight into the mind of someone else. Farago I expect better of you than this. I have gone back a read a number of articles where you (at least to me) fan racial flames and stereotypes. I wonder how you would feel if someone did a study of whether Jews tend to see anti semitism or “holocaust deniars” around every corner. Please stick to reporting zombie watchs and death watchs and leave the racial crap to Limbaugh and Beck.
hey, check out Paul Niedermeyer’s autobiography: maserati dreaming. it is one of the best things that has ever appeared in TTAC. Magical.
I don’t see a difference between this use of race-based statistics and the kind of cultural analysis that has been used (very successfully) to analyze and improve the performance of airplane flight crews. Korean Air, for instance, had an abysmal record of crashes before they finally owned up to the fact that the culturally-embedded deference towards superiors was to blame for many of these incidents.
GrandCharles: I don’t see a problem with facts. If those numbers are real then where is the racism? People have to be able to see there forces and weakness and to learn from it. Truth! (there is only one race, the human race! :)
The concern is that there are people who will see these different fatality statistics as proof that racism is alive and well in 21st century America. That, somehow, the automakers are selling less safe vehicles to minorities in order to kill them…and it’s not likely to be the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world touting this line of “thought.”
I disagree with loverofcars1969 (directly above). As a medical reporter, I’ve reported on ethnic differences in various areas of public health, most notably for the publication, CNS News (now defunct). Differences in things like drinking and unwed births are real, and if you refuse to face them, you can’t do anything about them.
the kinds of differences reported on here are more cultural, but there are racial differences as well. For example, black men are more likely than Caucasians to get prostate cancer, and black people are more likely than euros to have lactose intolerance. I think there are racial differences in breast cancer as well.
additionally, African Americans in the US are more likely to have high blood pressure than American euros, and my recollection is that they are also more likely to have hypertension that Africans in Africa.
Well, I must be reading Bob’s post differently, as I don’t think he’s trying to be racist. I think he’s questioning why race should be a factor.
For example, when he says “you’ll have to head down to the appendix to learn how to properly stereotype any given ethnic group”, I read that as being critical of such stereotyping.
Anyhows, I’m not against trying to improve driver safety. But if the causes of the disparities noted in the study are truly based in such deep-seated cultural mindsets, then I have to ask:
1) Is a program based on “traffic safety” really going to have an impact on such mindsets?
2) Wouldn’t such mindsets have potentially far greater negative impacts in other areas of life (education, health, child-raising, …)
3) Other than pointng out the consequences of such negative mindsets/behaviors, what more can be done to change those mindsets/behaviors?
4) Aren’t there already programs out there to try to change them?
One example: alcohol consumption. Alcoholism is a notorious problem among Native Americans. Plug that in and it explains a lot. How do you change it?
Ok, once again we have the Left misinterpreting an economic problem as a racial one. God, does it piss me off when this happens because it plays right into the hands of people who like the status quo.
Lets’ review:
1. What do most non-white/non-Asian ethnic groups have in common?
*Answer: they’re poor.
2. What socioeconomic conditions typify poor people:
* Poor relative health
* Poor quality of education
* Poor or unstable home environment
* Lower opportunity for self-improvement
3. What do those conditions lead to:
* Lower IQ, EQ and cognitive skills
* Poor risk-assessment skills
* Borderline or full-sociopathic behaviour
* Substance abuse tendencies
4. What causes accidents on the road
* See #3 above
Is anyone surprised by this? Really?
Do you want to know what the solution is? Because the problem isn’t that they’re first nations or black or whatever—because there’s nothing in their genes that makes them bad drivers—it’s that they’re poor. If you can prevent them from being poor, then you can prevent the problems that poverty causes and thusly get the accident rate down.
I’d love to see an breakdown of casualties versus net income level. I think it would be enlightening. I also think that the rich have a vested interest in not making the externalized cost of poverty apparent, less some enterprising politician attempt to address it, and as such you’ll never see those stats published in any meaningful way.
So there’s a direct connection between taxpayer handouts to ethnic groups and highway safety. Who knew?
If there is, then someone is being really, really stupid, or is (and this is probably the case) making hay by playing up people’s feelings about race-level victimization.
Of course, this is the same line of thought that has netted the US the most expensive and least effective health care system on the planet: treat the end-result if you must, but addressing the root cause in a holistic fashion is socialism, and must be avoided.
David Holzman
The title of the article is what I disagree with.
“Governor’s Highway Safety Association Plays the Race Card”
I have no problem with reporting information based on race. But I tink responsible journalism has to begin somewhere. Explain how they are “playing the race card” because they are reporting highway incidents based on race.
We can change the world….
Rearrange the world….
It’s starting if you believe in seatbelts….
Appologies to Graham Nash
One example: alcohol consumption. Alcoholism is a notorious problem among Native Americans. Plug that in and it explains a lot. How do you change it?
Poverty. Povertypovertypovertypovertypovertypoverty.
Did I mention poverty?
Native reserves that suddenly find themselves wealthy because of natural resources or, say, legalized gambling often see associated improvement in living conditions, health and general welfare. Most reserves, though, are desperately poor and government funding is just enough to maintain the status quo.
@ psarhjinian :
I’d love to see an breakdown of casualties versus net income level. I think it would be enlightening.
Good point… That would be damned interesting. I’m sure insurance companies already have all the data required. Why else would they check credit scores before quoting an insurance rate?
ott :
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Why else would they check credit scores before quoting an insurance rate?
To increase the likelihood that they get paid.
David Holzman :
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
the kinds of differences reported on here are more cultural, but there are racial differences as well. For example, black men are more likely than Caucasians to get prostate cancer, and black people are more likely than euros to have lactose intolerance. I think there are racial differences in breast cancer as well.
additionally, African Americans in the US are more likely to have high blood pressure than American euros, and my recollection is that they are also more likely to have hypertension that Africans in Africa.
I suspect that’s more socio-economic than racial. African-Americans as a group are poorer, so they a) don’t go to doctors as often for preventative care, and b) buy cheaper, less healthy foods. Both factors have a direct impact on things like blood pressure and prostate health.
TZ :
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:50 am
ott :
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Why else would they check credit scores before quoting an insurance rate?
To increase the likelihood that they get paid.
If they don’t get paid, they don’t pay out on a claim. That’s a BS excuse. The real reason is that they did some half-cocked study that found that people were a higher risk to get into an accident. Whatever. We know the real reason – they screw them because they can.
Another way they dick people over: if you haven’t had insurance for six months previous to application, they charge more. A friend of mine was living abroad for a year and came back to the States. He was charged an outrageous premium, even though he was over 25, didn’t have a bad driving record or bad credit (I know – I did his mortgage for him). They told him it was because he had previously been uninsured.
Unreal.
I don’t have a problem with doing demographically-based studies, per se. If the data is useful and correlates to something relevant, fine.
But I do get nervous when I see that an insurance company is paying for them, as I presume that they are going to want to use the results to justify redlining.
I’m willing to bet that minority groups tend to drive older cars, which means that they have less safety equipment that could protect them in a crash. Passive safety is the most important contributor to reduced fatality rates, so older cars are naturally going to kill more people.
I’m also willing to guess that their passenger loads are probably higher. That, too, should lead to higher fatality rates because there are more people exposed to the effects of a given crash.
There are probably cultural factors as well, such as higher DUI rates or lower seatbelt usage. Those require cultural changes, with enforcement used as a backup. If people don’t want to buckle up, there is very little that your local cop is going to be able to do about that.
psarhjinian :
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
Native reserves that suddenly find themselves wealthy because of natural resources or, say, legalized gambling often see associated improvement in living conditions, health and general welfare. Most reserves, though, are desperately poor and government funding is just enough to maintain the status quo.
You would not believe what some tribes make off casinos. I used to work for a homebuilder that did a lot of business in the area of the Pechenga casinos in Southern Cal, and we took a lot of applications from Pechenga Indians.
The tribe divvies up all the profits from that casino equally to every member – works out to about $300,000 a year for every recipient. I thought this was total BS when I took the first app, but it’s absolutely for real.
Heck, I’m in a tribe too – one of the Kohanim – where’s my check?
Those are the stats. Nothing racist about it. I’ve seen it myself firsthand here in the Atlanta burbs – a disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics that don’t use seatbelts and/or car seats for small children.
psarhjinian: I agree with most of what you say regarding the socioeconomic aspect (i.e. poor people make stupid decisions), but there are, I think, cultural factors also at work. There’s the macho thing that I see at work with young black males and rednecks in terms of seatbelt use. Not sure about why they simply don’t believe in physics after being exposed to the stuff in school and on TV. I have more than one redneck friend that refuses to wear a seatbelt because he’d rather be “thrown free”. I couldn’t change his mind if I spent days at it.
Now, for the parents of those that don’t properly secure their kids in car seats… I would have no mercy on them when they kill their kids in an accident due to that negligence. They aren’t THAT dumb or uninformed. Just lazy is about all I can attribute it to. Just let the clan all pile into the minivan and jump up and down with abandon, completely unrestrained.
If anything comes of the stats, I would hope that it might be used to further target information that might appeal to their demographic and/or culture in order to get the message across about alcohol, seatbelts, etc. Same way that advertisers use blacks on billboards in College Park and Hispanics on Buford Hwy. Maybe they just won’t listen to the “establishment” and its straight-laced approach. Something like that.
I forgot to add something… The macho thing (or whatever) exists in another example that comes to mind – that of eye/ear protection when using power tools. I can’t tell you how many Hispanics I’ve witnessed with absolutely no eye/ear protection on cutting concrete with a power saw, busting rocks with a sledgehammer, etc. It’s not like they don’t know about the existence of earplugs and safety glasses. Same for the redneck friends above. Every time I have cut wood with an axe, used a chainsaw or table saw side-by-side with them they have refused my offer of ear muffs and safety glasses (I have extra pairs). I simply can’t explain it beyond the macho thing. Guess it’s more important to look tough than to lose your eyesight and hearing. It amazes me though to see people in construction (Hispanics above) who don’t wear either and have their paycheck depend on their physical ability to see/hear. I just shake my head.
so does this mean white people are going to get discounts now?
…but there are, I think, cultural factors also at work.
Those cultural factors usually stem from economic sources. It’s a variation of the “Fat, Happy People Don’t Blow Themselves Up” theory of terrorism mitigation, which played itself out with the IRA and FLQ.
Risk-taking has two causes:
One, an inability to assess risk because of prefrontal cortex immaturity or retardation. In youth and teens, this part of the brain isn’t fully developed, which is one reason why teenagers will do stupid things without really processing what could go wrong. They’re functionally retarded in this specific sense.
Two is that rich people with lots of opportunity have more reason to be conservative in life/safety risk-taking. They have more to lose. Poor people across cultures take more risks because they see less return-on-investment in their daily life. Machismo has benefit if you’re poor because it increases your standing and opportunity (for money, respect and genetic-material-exchange). It has considerably less benefit to someone who is upper-middle class.
The problem with poverty is that it can become institutionalized into a culture. Generations of poor people reinforce a kind of positive feedback loop that gets progressively harder to break. This is why it’s all well and good to talk about bootstraps and such, but when you’re the third-generation crack-baby kid who lives in a ghetto, skip school and never get good nutrition, it’s not as likely you’ll spawn the next Barack Obama as the kid who grew up in upper-middle-class WASPia.
You have to break the cycle of poverty, which takes more than an election cycle’s or fiscal year’s worth of attention to acheive. Hence the problem.
so does this mean white people are going to get discounts now?
They already do, I suspect. I don’t think you’ll ever see it called the Gringo Discount on your statement, but they probably pay less than another, higher-risk group.
so does this mean white people are going to get discounts now?
They already do. It’s called “redlining.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
So, I guess if there was a website called “The Truth About Alcoholism”, then they’d be saying somebody is Playing the Race Card when a scientist or a government institution supports funding to reduce alcoholism among native Americans.
Or likewise, “The Truth About Hypertension” would criticize “racist” support of programs to combat hypertension in african-americans.
Or not.
The danger: targeting specific communities with safety messages tailored to their “cultural heritage” reinforces cultural divisiveness.
When a government spends time, effort and money along racial/ethnic lines, they encourage people within these groups to see themselves as separate from the whole.
It’s natural; racial/ethnic programs create a racial/ethnic fight for government resources. That’s doubly true when you tacitly admit that government payments made to that community “soften them up” for the government-approved b-mod to follow.
I know the whole “American identity” thing is a matter for debate. But I believe that my tax money should be spent creating inclusiveness. Shouldn’t ALL Americans buckle-up, drive sober, drive well? Do we really have to break it down along racial/ethnic lines? This is not a government campaign against sickle cell anemia.
I am aware of the counter-argument: efficiency. Results. If black men don’t wear seat belts as much as white men, what’s wrong with targeting black men? Ends. Means. Justification.
It’s certainly a line of thinking that MADD has publicly acknowledged in its campaigns (“If one child is saved…”). MADD’s inclusion on this eight-member panel shows the underlying thinking: whatever works.
Other than the danger of preventing/fragmenting/destroying our national identity, I think you also have to draw a line between a reactive and proactive government.
The danger to liberty is far greater when a government seeks to prevent a behavior than when it seeks to punish it. For example, punishing people for not fastening their child’s seat belt is one thing. “Intervening” within the families of people who MIGHT fail to do so BEFORE they commit an offense is quite another.
I’m not against education. Not at all. But this is slippery slope stuff, which widens the role of government. For me, that sucks. Would I sacrifice safety for liberty? Yes. What if it was my own daughter who’d be saved? That’s no way to make public policy. And I sure as hell don’t want any of my children growing up in a police state. Not to sound paranoid or anything.
Robert has duly noted the racist stereotypes (page 24) which are gratuitously offered to explain the statistics.
I suspect that Limbaugh or Beck would have the same take as the writer i.e. that the left will use racial stereotypes when seeking to cast minorities as helpless victims and yet bristle whenever someone else mentions behaviors as a root cause.
Thus you get posts like loverofcars1969’s “I dont see anything wrong with reporting information based on race if it can be used to help people.”
See, they get to inject race as an issue as often and as needed to advance their agenda..to, you know, help people.
The ignorance here about vehicle insurance is astounding, but not surprising given the lack of such in the general population. There’s more to it that you could ever imagine, starting with it being one of the most highly regulated forms of commerce there is. And when the gov. is involved…. well, you know the rest of the story.
“So what is it about non-whites that makes non-whites more accident prone?”
Was this really asked in the study? I thought the study said that certain non-whites were less likely to wear seatbelts or use child restraints. That would be a difference in the RESULT of the accident, not the freqeuncy.
I have listened to Rush Limbaugh on and off since 1992. I have never heard a racist statement from him. As a matter of fact his two most frequent guest hosts when he was away were Dr. Walter Williams, professor of economics at James Madison University, who is black; and former film critic and radio show host Michael Medved, who is Jewish. For many years these two were his stand ins. Williams was hosting the show just a few weeks ago.
As for Beck, he seems too busy looking for communists in the goverment (and finding them) to say anything racist (unless you believe like some that any criticism of BO is racist which means that I’m a racist too).
On the other hand, our current Vice-President has a history of saying racially insensitive things that would get someone like Limbaufh pulled off the air. Just google Joe Biden and “controversal remarks”.
spyspeed – There is a difference between cultural observations and stereotypes, and even some stereotypes are true. I didn’t see anything in that section that was overtly racist.
On one hand, I see the benefit in tailoring your message to those who you want to reach. On the other hand, I see this as wasted money catering to those who refuse to assimilate culturally.
Our school system is suffering because it has adopted the ideas that all students should be able to achieve equally and that it is worthwhile to create individual approaches for each individual student. Previously when the the method was one way, sink or swim, it allowed the exceptional students to succeed and become exceptional and the underachievers to fail. Now, by not allowing anyone to fail we may raise up the bottom of the barrel, but by expending so much effort at the bottom those at the top don’t have enough resources available to reach the same heights they once could.
So, at the end of the day I suppose my feeling on this is that yes, there are cultural differences between different races that could effect traffic safety, and that noting them isn’t in and of itself racist, but we’d all be better off if we didn’t spend taxpayer money to find that out and address the situation.
FleetofWheel
Funny I always pictured myself as largely conservative. Based on the study and moving away from the “race card”. I would say that outreach and education is needed to understand and improve why one particular category of people tend not to use seatbelts over another. Call me a liberal dirtbag but I tend to think that education and experience trumps bullshit, ignorance, and fear. Sorry I can’t stay any longer my socialist comrades and minority friends are going out for a couple of beers to discuss how to keep “whitey down”.
Think we need segregated roads and websites?
windswords:
Hitler shook hands with Jesse Owens. Some of my best friends are black. Etc etc…
I suspect that Limbaugh or Beck would have the same take as the writer i.e. that the left will use racial stereotypes when seeking to cast minorities as helpless victims and yet bristle whenever someone else mentions behaviors as a root cause.
That would be because the Left, in the grand scheme of things, is kind of clueless about race/class issues, especially since the dawn of the New Left about a decade and a half ago. We know that poverty, not race, is the problem, but it’s just so easy to fall into victimhood.
That this plays directly into the hands of the Right pisses me right the hell off.
You can display the statistics for any problem according to any variable, including race. Determining the correlation of that variable is the tricky part.
One could study the rate of dwelling fires, robbery victims, natural disasters, or power outages all with respect to race. If the strongest linkage turns out to be income- or education-related, then race may have little to do with the issue.
Finally, the response to the findings is key – do you aim to solve the problem within the afflicted group, or by assigning blame elsewhere?
freedmike
The blood pressure is somewhat of a mystery, and there are those who think it’s at least partially a sequelae of discrimination (hence, you don’t see it in Africa). The prostate thing could be either poverty or a racial difference. Human evolution has greatly accelerated in the last 10k years or so, resulting in a lot of genetic differences based on geography http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626343.900-modern-times-causing-human-evolution-to-accelerate.html
loverofcars1969 :
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
FleetofWheel
Funny I always pictured myself as largely conservative. Based on the study and moving away from the “race card”. I would say that outreach and education is needed to understand and improve why one particular category of people tend not to use seatbelts over another. Call me a liberal dirtbag but I tend to think that education and experience trumps bullshit, ignorance, and fear. Sorry I can’t stay any longer my socialist comrades and minority friends are going out for a couple of beers to discuss how to keep “whitey down”.
Think we need segregated roads and websites?
There are those who believe that every issue has neat little political boundaries. Applying labels is usually easier than providing a cogent response.
windswords: …Rush isn’t racist…
I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.
…
You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.
…
Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.
Nah, nothing racist about Rush.
There is no slippery slope here, just a huge problem that needs to be fixed.
Accidental injury and death has tremendous repercussions and costs. Almost anything that contributes to solving the problem is worthy. Why, oh why has the Right adopted an anti-safety stance? Spend some time at accident scenes, in emergency rooms, and with the families of the injured and dead, and you will understand.
So a Black guy like me in an S550 is part of a group with a 1.8% chance of crashing?
That’s unnacceptable. I love my car.
Quite frankly, I don’t care if a person has green skin and has one eye but I do very much care what content of character they have and how smart they may be.
So, I wonder how the city of Detroit plays into this article with a population well over 80% black and a public high school graduation rate within 4 years under 25%?
They are running their own ship and have no one but themselves to blame for the facts of their situation when it comes to education and prosperity. The Detroit “race riots” happened over 40 years ago. Can we all stop with the race baiting in this country?
I also get so tired of the race card. I grew up poor and white, but I did have strong parenting and a dad that showed me how to safely drive and be a good man. Show me anyone from any demographic that has issues in their life including bad or unsafe driving habits, and I bet it’s related to their upbringing (or lack of as it is).
I know of a white kid that instead of real parenting has a shrink and prescription drugs and he’s not too far off from turning 16. What a scary thought it is of him on the same roads as I…
loverofcars1969:
“windswords:
Hitler shook hands with Jesse Owens.”
But would he if Jesse was Jewish?
Farago +1
Keep it inclusive. If we need to do a better job of wearing seat belts, inform everyone, not just one sub-set.
If you demand sub-sets, then use a useful one, like education level or poverty level. Color of skin isn’t helpful….it’s just the easiest data point to gather. Slackers…
Furthermore — I bet the rich, entitled white kids are the worst drivers, period. High speed, no seat belts, no regard for human life, and think they own the road. (It takes one to know one.)
Where is their sub-set?
windswords :
September 24th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I think he shared equal love for both lol.