After spending some time here in Asia, it is interesting to ponder some of the cultural differences between here and North America. Two differences that are quite apparent are those of personal responsibility and personal safety.
North America, for example, is obsessed with personal safety, while doing everything to avoid taking any sort of responsibility about it. There are all sort of rules about what you can and cannot do. The average Asian driver, were they plopped onto a North American highway, would probably stare dumbfounded at being given a ticket for not staying in their lane, or using their horn excessively.
And at the same time, when someone thinks of some novel way to maim themselves that has not been addressed by existing rules, they feel they need to be rewarded. This Patent Office for Inventors of Stupid Actions is known as the liability lawsuit. As a result, owners manuals these days are prefaced with eight or more pages of "Warning! Death or Serious Injury may result if..." disclaimers. And we're not talking about owners manuals for chainsaws or shotguns here. But rather, MP3 players and toasters. Worse, our society actively encourages this travesty. If you are so stupid as to kill or maim yourself with an MP3 player or toaster, you should be given an ignominious Darwin Award, not rewarded with a cash settlement.
Conversely, Asia is big on personal responsibility, but not personal safety. Want to rent a scooter? No license? No problem? If your lack of skill makes you crash into a bridge abuttment, that's your problem. And you owe us for a new scooter, thank you very much.
Here in Asia, it is assumed you know what you're doing. The average North American will never know how refreshing it is not to have your intelligence continually insulted every time you buy a coffee by having to read the cup's disclaimer: "Warning! Coffee is hot! Death or Serious Injury may result if you pour over your head or spill on your gonads while driving down the highway."
At the same time, you sometimes have to wonder if everyone here does know what they're doing: construction workers hauling bricks with flip flops, welders working without eye protection, vehicles backing up on highways, busses passing on blind corners of windy mountainous roads, shooting fireworks over crowds... there is no shortage of Darwin Awards to be handed out here either. It's just that rewarding stupidty is not so enthusasitically embraced as in North America.
One thing is clear, however: Asia will overtake us in the near future, not just economically, but from an evolutionary standpoint as well.
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Hey Ron,
You raise some very interesting points in this post.
While I have no statistics to prove it, I would make the supposition that the "death/injury accident rate" in North America is substantially less than what you would find in most (all?) Asian countries. Certainly, there are many valid reasons for this (i.e. it's much more fun to live for a longer period of time ...), however this does manifest itself in a number of ways.
Now, one of the strong benefits of our system is that responsibility for an accident/unforeseen death can be applied to those that have a degree of responsibility for it. This is a strong basis for enabling many of the current environmental lawsuits - i.e. that many actions of many companies (& individuals) has led to the untimely death or decreased lifespans of many people. Furthermore, the framework for litigation does have a positive feedback cycle, making equipment, policies and procedures better and safer for all concerned.
Of course, there are flaws in the system, and it is heavily abused by many who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. These lawsuits are heavily publicized.
Anecdotally, I do see a high degree of personal responsibility for the folks that we rescue off of the north shore mountains - in any case that I have been involved with, the individuals are always quick to assume responsibility and to show appreciation for any help we render them. This highlights that lack of personal responsibility is not quite endemic in our society - at least not yet.
Interesting points by both of you.... One rather surprising thing I noticed is that in 4 months of living in Thailand, I never once saw a car accident, not a fender bender, nothing.
Actually I didn't see an accident of any kind while living there. Here in Calgary, there is no way I could have gone through 4 months without at least seeing a fender bender.
There is no doubt that death by car accidents in Thailand is much lower than in Canada. I think speed has something to do with it but I don't know that speed would explain all of it.
Aside from that interesting observation, I personally feel in North America that we are too paranoid, too sanitized, too antibioticized, etc. The Asians find it quite humorous and the Europeans think we're nuts.
I believe, in Thailand at least, that this emphasis on personal responsibility but neglect of safety, as North Americans might view it, has much to do with the Buddhist philosophy.
Guy;
I don't think I ever implied that Asia has a lower accident rate; I agree with you and suspect it is quite a bit higher, based on lots of suspect things I've seen (and mentioned near the bottom of the post).
You of course raise a number of good points, none if which I would argue with. Rules are there for a reason, and lawsuits are meant to apportion responsibility in an appropriate manner when something bad happens that involves multiple parties.
The rant was intended to be primarily tongue-in-cheek. However, when you do have MP3 owners manuals with a 'death or serious injury may occur if..' section that is eight pages long and lists every bone-headed thing that could possibly be thought of, in order to ensure that someone cannot successfully sue you when they do some bone-headed thing with their MP3 player, there is definitely room for improvement in the system. This was the true aim of my rant.
Hey Ron,
Good points aplenty - I will read your posts with closer attention to the tongue-in-cheekness.
For humour, I checked out the manual for the latest iPod to see what they say for safety - nothing. Mostly because there is a completely separate "iPod Safety Guide"! Although it's "only" 3 pages, it has funny comments such as "Do not connect
or disconnect the iPod USB Power Adapter with wet hands". :-)
Funny - I just realized that my new skis didn't come with a safety warning on them ... ;-)
This is great info to know.
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