Asian Drivers - TV Tropes

"How much signal I need to cut across eight lane? None? I turn now. Good luck, everybody else!" — Asian woman, Family Guy, “Prick Up Your Ears"

The stereotype that Far East Asians are bad drivers. If it is to be believed, Asians simultaneously drive too fast and too slow, supposedly (at least for East Asians) due to their eyes not being wide enough to see all of the road.

The Real Life justification behind the trope is complicated. Asian countries tend to have more lax traffic laws, and widespread automobile ownership in Asia is a new phenomenon for millions of people. The result is that many of the defensive-driving training and techniques developed and stressed in the West have not yet been as widely adapted in Asia. Also, China and India particularly are very heavily populated, which could lead to traffic jams and accidents. Asian cultures tend to be workaholic, which can result in Asians who are in a hurry. Finally, the No Peripheral Vision stereotype isn't backed up by physiology, but it can come as a side effect of the Asian Education Mama encouraging their children to focus exclusively on one thing... which discourages situational awareness and therefore peripheral vision.

Interestingly Muslim Asian drivers living in Western countries (mostly Muslims of West Asian and South Asian ethnicities) are usually stereotyped as being reliable Taxi Drivers or Delivery Drivers (sometimes Bus Drivers, in How I Met Your Mother, Ranjit Singhs is taxi driver, then a Limo Driver, while Rolf in Army of Thieves is the Get-Away Driver) typically as employers would see their lack of alcohol consumption makes them reliable driving employees.

The stereotype being used on Asians outside of Asia most likely has to do with anti-immigrant prejudices. In the US, it doesn't help that some of the prominent Asian immigrant communities are in California, New York and New Jersey, three states where the populations in general, regardless of race, have Drives Like Crazy reputations (backed by GMAC Insurance's annual study, no less). This can simply result in Asian immigrants being convenient scapegoats for traffic accidents. A study published in 2018 actually shows that Asian drivers are statistically safer, better drivers and therefore get lower auto insurance rates.

Compare Women Drivers and Dangerous Senior Driver for other groups who have a reputation for poor driving.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

• A reverse example where Italy from Hetalia: Axis Powers drives so crazily that Japan makes a safer car just so he never has to endure that experience again. Of course, this drives right into another stereotype: that of Italians being ridiculously unsafe drivers.

Film — Live-Action

• Among his other stereotypical Asian characteristics, Long Duk Dong wrecks his American family's host car in Sixteen Candles.note Although he was probably drunk at the time
• Crash (2004), for all its racial-awareness apparently couldn't resist a terrible Asian driver with an horrible accent to cause said car accident.
• In the Nicolas Cage film Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), one of the team members is now a driving instructor, and his most hopeless student is an Asian woman. It's plain insulting. [Early in the film, Donny Astricky is giving the woman driving lessons]Donny: Don't look at me, look at the people next to you! Nex... Look at the... - well, turn the wheel! Pull over, pull her the hell over! [shuts car off after pulling over] Don't touch nothing! You can't negotiate turns. You can't signal properly. You can't maintain speed. You can't parallel park. Hell, you can't drive, honey. Shit, I can't swim, I know I can't. So you know what I do? I stay my ass out the pool![Donny receives call from Memphis Raines asking him to help with the heist, he lets the driver go and tells her to be careful, she immediately gets in a car crash while swerving into traffic][Later in the film, Astricky is at the DMV doing recon on the vehicles, the driver is getting her written test results right behind him]Woman Driver: [sees results, cries] It's not fair! I thought you were supposed to go faster if people are following you!
• Averted in The Green Hornet Serials with Kato, who has no problems driving the Black Beauty over 200 MPH on city roads that were definitely not built for speeds anywhere near that high.
• In The Pink Panther 2: When Clouseau makes an inappropriate remark to his Japanese colleague, he is asked by his manners teacher about whether or not he's prejudiced towards Asians. He says he isn't, except when it comes to them driving.
• Quiz Lady: The stereotype of Asians being unable to drive is the basis of a joke when Asian-American sisters Anne and Jenny fight over the steering wheel and nearly crash into a small truck. The driver shouts that they can't drive. Jenny, always one to put her foot in her mouth, yells back that he's racist. He leans out the window to give them the stink-eye...and also turns out to be Asian. Jenny: ...Oh, hi!