[dhughes]

I live in Canada in a small town with a fairly large (per capita) Lebanese population (Tweel, Haddad, Rashed, Jabour).

We have bad drivers here but I am willing to bet we exported the behaviour to Lebanon not the other way around.

[entropy_]

I highly doubt it. The behaviour has nothing to do with bad drivers, it's mostly because of lack of enforcement. The only thing you can get a fine for is speeding, and even then most speed traps are easy to spot. Otherwise, just do whatever the fuck you want and you won't get a fine. I'm serious, anything goes.

I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it). I have a friend who got rear-ended by a police car and then verbally abused for being an idiot by stopping at a red light at night.

We didn't use to have speeding tickets a couple of year back. Then they started enforcing speed limits. Lo-and-behold people started paying attention and generally trying not to speed. But going the wrong way(even on a highway, I was once almost killed by a guy doing that because there was a traffic jam at the only exit and he didn't feel like waiting so he just U-turned and went the other way, but that's another story) will not get you fined.

I'm pretty sure that if traffic rules were enforced properly then people wouldn't so easily ignore them. But we don't have the necessary amount of police to even do a significant fraction of what's needed.

[dhughes]

You just described my town.

A lot of ex-hockey goons are police, three cars go through the red light, people don't signal turns not even police, lines on the road are ignored, people park anywhere, tailgaters everywhere, cars without license plates, road crews make the roads stupid because they can't drive so how would they know a road is wrong and on and on.

I feel your pain.

[graue]

> I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it).

As another commenter says, I've seen both of these things happen in New York City (especially the second).

[akgerber]

That sounds like New York City.

[tome]

What do you mean "you exported the behaviour to Lebanon"? How?

[ptaipale]

This might be something along the lines of "I inherited my bad behaviour from my father; my mother still has got hers."