Jeremy Vargo
A thought experiment- you are driving on an open road such as State Highway One. In front of you is a car travelling erratically: slowing right down on easy corners, speeding up on straights, therefore cannot pass.
You might concoct some predictions about the age, gender, or ethnicity of the driver.
Finally, your salvation, the left turn indicator blinks in front of you, and as you overtake into open road freedom, and a quick check of the driver reveals…
Human nature
As it turns out, not much. It is human nature to look for patterns that confirm the beliefs we already hold, something psychologists call ‘confirmation bias.’
If I hold a belief that ‘foreigners are bad drivers,’ and I see someone who looks foreign driving poorly, that reinforces my belief. If the driver looks like me, I am less likely to use their ethnicity as an explanation for their driving.
Confirmation bias
Our confirmation bias is powerfully shaped by stories we see and hear.
Take the recent incidents where local drivers have taken car keys away from foreign drivers in the South Island.
Were these drivers the most dangerous motorists in New Zealand?
Probably not.
But the vigilantes who decided to take the keys into their own hands had a narrative of dangerous foreign drivers in their minds, fed by news items about several high profile crashes, where locals had died due to the actions of a tourist.
Last year, the son of one of these victims circulated a petition demanding tourists take a driving test before they are unleashed on our roads. It seemed like a reasonable request.
Ridiculous stats
Except that, the paranoia is statistically ridiculous. The hard facts tell us that over the last ten years, so-called ‘tourist drivers’ were involved in around 6% of all road crashes that resulted in death or injury, and were found at fault about 2% of the time.
That means for every crash where a foreign driver injures or kills a New Zealander, there are two incidents where a New Zealander does the same to a tourist.
Reverse Psychology
When I was 14, there was a lot of talk about increasing the age of eligibility for a learner driver’s license from 15 to 16. I was incensed by the possibility, I knew that at 15, I would be responsible and ready to drive.
Of course, once I was in my mid-twenties, I supported the eventual raising of the age to 16. Why? Because teenage drivers were now the ‘other’ and I did not care if they had to bear a higher burden to make the roads safer for me.
Enforcing new laws on hapless tourists seems easier than changing national driving habits. However, fixing tourist driving can (at most) only affect around 2% of the crashes that hurt or kill.
When we demand that the ‘other’ take responsibility to fix the tragedy on our roads, we dismiss the need to inspect our own conduct, and continue taking comfort every time our bias is reconfirmed.
Jeremy Varo is Media & Communications Officer at Maxim Institute based in Auckland
