Don't know how to drive: those "foreigners" / from other countries

[redrhodie]

See, I would assume she's talking about Americans.

[PamNY]

I would think she meant Americans, too. I'm fairly certain at least a few people said that about me in England.

I wouldn't assume racism from that comment. Could be anything, including the fact that people like to complain about other drivers.

[Grog]

I can confirm unfortunately that in Western Canada this comment definitely referred to immigrants or non-whites, especially Chinese people or South/East Indian.

I hear it all the time about drivers in Richmond.

I do find, based on sitting in my friends' cars, that there is a general difference between how people drive depending on whether they were born in a car culture (i.e. North America), learning to drive as teenagers (or before!), or learned to drive as adults after having been raised in a less car-centric environment. However, the difference I observe is that people who were not born in a car culture seem to take driving less personal, to see their cars less as an extension of their selves and more as a mean of transportation. That doesn't mean that they are paying any more attention, but if they see a cyclist or other "obstacle" they will be more considerate of it, less likely to use their car to assert their presence aggressively. This doesn't have much to do with skin colour but rather with the level of immersion in car culture.

This is totally unscientific though.