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Comment by ryusage | Hacker News Reader

Russia sounds like a pretty scary place, to be honest. Is it really as bad as this makes it sound? How does a whole country get to be so sociopathic?

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This is a complex question.

1. Article is mostly based on CHP community posts and comments. Their data is strongly skewed toward scary stuff (which is the only type of content that is posted there)

2. There are several categories of horrible things that can happen to you, but mostly you can avoid them. However, sometimes you can't, and sometimes it's batshit crazy. For example, couple of months ago, some road crash with some heated argument happened in St. Petersburg. One of the participants of that argument died from five knife wounds to the chest. Investigative Committee alleged that (sic!) the man committed suicide (google Grigory Kochnev). You can't make this shit up.

3. Russians themselves are mostly fine, but corruption is on super-high levels and these people are not sent as alien agents from space. Saltykov-Shchedrin, great Russian satirist, wrote more than a hundred years ago: "If I were to doze off and re-awake in a hundred years and someone asked me what is happening in Russia, my answer would be unhesitating: people are drinking and stealing".

4. If you are to visit Russia as a tourist, you are reasonably safe. But I'd never advice anyone to open business in or relocate to Russia. Unless you want to deal with truly kafkaesque things every single day.

So is the article just picking out a few isolated incidents and painting a completely unrealistic picture of driving in Russia?

I realize that I'm just throwing more anecdotes into the "NOT DATA" bucket here, but the last time I visited Russia I was driven around by my grandfather and uncle. It was probably one of the most terrifying things I've ever experienced on the road, and I've had a tire blow-out in a Ford king-everything truck, as well as losing power-everything in the same truck, both times going 70+ mph on a highway.

What specifically made the driving in Russia so terrifying? Was it the kind of things the article was talking about, or something else?

I never saw anyone trying to pull a scam, but my impressions - and this was about a decade ago - were of a Road Warrior type environment. The distinction between road and sidewalk was a mere suggestion, traffic signals were the equivalent of someone shushing you in a library, and lanes - what lanes?

It's not isolated, but it's not happening on everyday basis too.

Anecdotally speaking, I haven't witnessed things in their "The Russian Dash-Cam Supercut" video even once. I can confirm that lots of people disregard rules if they think they can get away with it, though. Things like not lowering speed before the yield sign or going full speed through the crossing on yellow traffic light account for majority of the accidents involving two cars. Crossing the road in the wrong place causes most pedestrian deaths.

Statistically speaking, we've got 3-5 times more fatalities than EU countries per capita and about 1.5-2 times more than in US, from what I've found. Some of these accidents happen due to weather and poor road maintenance, but you can't really blame the weather much, since the situation is much better in neighbor Finland.

'I can confirm that lots of people disregard rules if they think they can get away with it, though. Things like not lowering speed before the yield sign or going full speed through the crossing on yellow traffic light'

Sounds like Boston...

I can think of at least two retired guys from the UK who like living here in Russia.

A fish rots from the head.

Reminds me of these reddit comments about Russian girls:

http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/16bl5l/something_som...

Keep that sexist crap contained on Reddit, don't spread it around here, sexist.

Wow, I must've really hurt your feelings in the other thread. Delighted.

I'm not sure how these comments have anything to do with the way Russia is being run these days.

"How does a whole country get to be so sociopathic?"

Consider me dumb but I still don't get the relation with Russian girls. I know quite a few of them and they don't strike me as particularly sociopathic. If you mean to say that such generalizations are not applicable then yes, of course not everybody in the country is like that, but at the same time I doubt you'd see young people throwing themselves in front of cars in order to be able to sue the drivers in many other countries. And that kind of behaviour has its roots in how the country is run, and most Russian people would agree with that. At least, my Russian friends do. People with skills in demand abroad leave in droves, the Russian mob is firmly in control and they can only be that way because the authorities are about as corrupt as they come. Compared to other countries that have managed to get rid of the so called communists former Russia and its component states have it worse than any of them.

> Consider me dumb but I still don't get the relation with Russian girls.

I thought you were saying that sociopathy from the top can effect the entire society. However, you have specific mechanisms in mind having to do with the workings (or not) of law enforcement.

Is this meant to be sarcastic or serious?

Not meant to be entirely serious, but I do think that seeing lots of sociopathic behavior in society does affect interpersonal behaviors.

Um, perhaps. And what exactly does this have to do with Russian girls?

Oh sorry. Thought they were part of society.

I remember watching some reality COPS show with John Bunnell and they went to Russia to follow some of the detectives there.

When the Russians would bust drug dealers, they would take their drugs and give them to addicts who informed on them. Pretty crazy stuff.

That's a great inventive to turn informer! It's perfectly logical, in a certain horrible kind of way.

Well, some people think the same about the US from stories they hear.

That's fair, and that's partially why I'm asking. I know many have the impression that the United States is incredibly dangerous, to which I would say that's only really true in very specific areas - generally the poorest areas where people are desperate. This sounds really widespread, though. I've never heard of people in the US carrying around weapons purely in case of road rage, for example.

> I've never heard of people in the US carrying around weapons purely in case of road rage, for example.

I've had a friend of mine in Texas give me specific (un-solicted) advice on how to have a gun for protection in case of road rage. (Involving what features not to get, because you don't really need them and they make juries think you're a gun nut itching to shoot someone.)

Also in Texas, once I got out of the car at an intersection so I could let the people in the car ahead know they didn't have their headlights on. I told my friends this had happened, and they all told me, "That's a good way to get shot!"

I've also been advised to have a steel pipe in the car, since it's useful as a "cheater bar" to get more leverage on the lug nut wrench as well as for self defense.

Personal anecdotes? How about some real numbers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_rage

A 2007 study of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas concluded that the cities with the least courteous drivers (most road rage) are Miami, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, and Boston. The cities with the most courteous drivers (least road rage) are Minneapolis, Nashville, St. Louis, Seattle, and Atlanta.[11] In spite of this, in 2009, New York, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Atlanta and Minneapolis/St. Paul were rated the top five "Road Rage Capitals" of the United States.[12]

In other words, any big city. And (from what I can tell), deadly incidents are not that common.

I've heard "that's a good way to get shot" used to describe just about every activity in just about every part of every large city. Either it's not true, or I'm doing it wrong because nobody ever shoots me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias

Not all shootings are fatal.

But that entirely misses the point. Not going outside after dark is like wearing a tiger repelling necklace. See? No tiger attacks, it keeps me safe.

Hm, fair enough. But how often do your friends actually get attacked? Is it really a reasonable fear for them? I've never been there myself so I might be completely wrong, but my impression of Texas is that the culture there is more paranoid than necessary, and unusually preoccupied with the idea of lethal self-defense.

And what kind of area was this? Part of my surprise about Russia is that it sounds like this kind of thing happens everywhere.

The real trick to understand is that the culture is very diverse here in the larger cities. (I live in a very much urban, and fairly poor part of Houston, the SE side of Downtown.) There are just about as many people who would chafe at the idea that anyone would even own a gun as there are that own several. My perception is generally that the pre-occupation with self defense that people observe is not an urban trend. All of that is anecdotal and worth what you paid for it =)

However, I've lived here for about 20 years now, usually in poorer areas, mostly due to cost factor. I have generally felt safer in some of the worst urban areas in Houston, than some of the moderately bad urban areas in other places, like NYC, Baltimore, Chicago. Outside of certain areas like Forum Park [2], and the central swath of the 3rd Ward [3], I always felt the most unsafe in the suburbs. (However, my short time living in Forum Park was a rather agreeable one as long as I was in my area of the complex that everyone knew me.) But, on our side of town, its not uncommon to be surrounded by vertical gunfire on the holidays - so, there is that, I guess.

Road rage? Well, I've been known to be a pretty aggressive driver, and only had one instance of it happening. It was probably my fault though, I really shouldn't have driven up on the sidewalk to make the turn after honking at him. =) We often like to joke that the reputation, deserved or not, that everyone else is armed here keeps everyone a bit more civil.

[1] For those not from Houston, Telephone road has a very, erm, "colorful" history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_Road

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_Park,_Houston

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Ward,_Houston

> But how often do your friends actually get attacked?

Well, once someone shot a rifle through their house, and they discovered the bullet holes and the bullet lodged in the back wall the next morning. However, the husband works in criminal justice, so they hear about a lot more violent incidents than most people.

> And what kind of area was this?

Suburban Houston.

I guess the question is whether Russian really need dashcams so much, or whether they are just overreacting.

In Russia it's hard to say, but in the U.S. I recommend that if you operate a commercial vehicle that you install one. If you operate a business and have people driving for you, you can review the footage and get rid of the problem employees before they cost you a million in insurance losses. After installing a system for a transportation company reviews of the tapes showed that 75% of the drivers were talking on their cell phones. They had a company meeting and showed a compilation video of all the phone video, even though it was now against federal law to do so. After that point drivers stopped using the phone while driving.

As the driver the camera is a mixed blessing, if you cause the accident, you've created your own evidence against yourself. If you the owner, it makes it harder for the employee to lie about what occurred if they were in the wrong.

Doesn't this mean the camera was pointed toward the driver and not the road?

Two cameras in the same unit. It's pointed at both.

Do people who have seat belts pretensioners need them so much or they are just overreacting? If you get into an accident it's better to have them than not and it's same with a dash cam.

Also, the same type of people who posts pictures of their food on Instagram loves to post videos how they passed a Ferrari from a green light or dodged Putin's motorcade etc.

Yes, this is really what I'm wondering.

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