Chinese thwarting seatbelt laws with t-shirts
 

Chinese thwarting seatbelt laws with t-shirts

If necessity is the mother of ingenuity, law enforcement must be the doting father. Drivers in China have taken to circumventing local seatbelt laws by purchasing and wearing special T-shirts. The shirts feature a graphic with a stripe that runs from shoulder to hip, creating the illusion that the driver is wearing his or her harness while seated. Police have reportedly begun cracking down on drivers for not wearing their belts after a rash of collisions resulted in occupants jettisoned from their vehicles. Now, getting busted without wearing your safety belt carries a penalty of the equivalent of $8 and two points on your license. Lose 12 points and you're walking.

The shirts themselves can cost up to $8, and while they aren't specifically illegal, some police have called the garments "self-deceptive." We aren't entirely sure what that means, though we imagine procuring and wearing the T is a bit more of a hassle than simply buckling up, regardless of the safety risks.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/03/11/c...with-t-shirts/

The Chinese, as a whole, love their cars (especially Buicks), but seem to have little concern (or understanding of) automotive safety. After centuries of a primitive culture and riding bicycles, the country now has not only the fastest-growing rate of motorization, but also one of the highest automotive death-rates-per-mile on the planet. There is often little or no conception of the potential hazards involved driving....many Chinese, for example, if they take the wrong entrance or exit ramp to an expressway, think nothing of actually doing a U-Turn or backing out again into fast-moving traffic.

Quoted for WTF? Generalization galore or just plain...?

Besides, reading this and trying to make sense of the grammar and parsing the run on sentences, after having decided (see what I did there? :rolleyes:) that this wasn't worth it, gave me a migraine. :uh:

I am sure you don't mean to sound as offensive as you came off, but theres two things I see wrong with your post.

1. Chinese didn't have a primitive culture. As far as we know, most societies outside the Europe and American infuence have DIFFERENT ways of living, but it is in no means close to primitive. The only ones that probably qualify as primitive are the indigenous people of very very hard to reach rural lands. As even Native tribes of former "distant" lands have access to industrial society and technology. As for China, the country is MASSIVE. Parts of the nation are indeed very primitive, but those are indigenous tribes as i have mentioned. National and Industrial China is very much up to par with America and Europe. They just have a different way of living. Visit the major cities and you will see what I am talking about. For the record, those cities have been "advanced" for far longer than America's existence. The good ol' USA has very "rural" people, but they are usually conviently forgotten when we try to compare ourselves with others.

2. For automotive safety, they do not lack concern. Generally speaking, most chinese drive like most everybody in America. Cautious and unwilling to be pulled over by the police. The incidents of stupidity that you ahve mentiond are usually the work of either a. Buttholes or b. The inexperienced. As for buttholes, there is no need to explain them. The inexperienced drivers are people who have just gotten their licenses and have been "forced" to attain them. Many former rural persons are being forced to work in urban cities because of the urbal sprawl that is going on. As a result they cannot, of course, walk to their jobs. They must have cars. They get into accidents because they do not properly learn road manners. They rush past the safety portions of the tests in order to get driving so they can feed their families. They get into trouble because they do not know any better. You might have mistakenly passed off ignorance for insolence. The same goes with ANY rural person who is now forced to commute by way of city car driving.

I once ran into this woman who was backing out of her ranch home into a busy state hwy. It is obvious she has not driven for the majority of her life. She didnt slow down, nor did she hold brakes, just trucked into the hwy. I hit her rear bumper, causing a light scratch on her big pickup, but a big dent into my little car. Obviously I was unhappy. I remember getting really mad at her over the situation, but looking back, I should have been more understanding as to different people and their walks of life.

I fully respect you and what you contribute to CL, and I don't mean to snap at you, nor do i mean to "put you in your place". I just wanted to say that overgeneralizations like that can lead to nasty stereotyping (something noone wants to be a part of).
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As for the seatbelt shirt thing, :rolls eyes:, why do people go so far to avoid buckling up? It must be super uncomfortale for them... I personally llike the feeling of being secured into my seat.