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I dont know why anyone would like living in Miami.
I like it aesthetically for one--the look of the architecture, the topography, the flora and fauna, and just the general "feel" of it. Part of the "feel" that I love is that I've never been anywhere else in the US that felt more to me like many different places in the Caribbean, and I love a lot of places in the Caribbean. I love the cultural stuff there--everything from the "social culture" ala South Beach, Calle Ocho, etc. to museums and zoos MetroZoo, Vizcaya, Miami Seaquarium, Fairchild Botanical Garden, etc. I love the nearby National and State Parks like the Everglades, Biscayne, John Pennekamp, etc. There are also a lot of other things in Florida that I love that Miami is within driving distance to for either a day trip or weekend trip. There are many more reasons, but that gives just an idea.
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moved to a place where ppl are friendlier, much less crime, less traffic/congestion, better weather, and where ppl speak english.
Well, for me, I think that Floridians are friendly overall, I don't think that crime statistics tell me anything about whether my family and I are likely to be safe (and I think we are likely to be safe), I don't think that the traffic is bad there, I'm fine with the weather (and prefer warm weather to cold now), and I have no problem with people not speaking English.
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That beautiful place is the mtns of NC,
I do love mountains, too, although North Carolina would probably one of my last picks for a mountain state to live in. Other than Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont--where I doubt I could deal with their winters very well, the only state east of the Mississippi that I'd pick to live in for a mountain state is Tennessee. But I much prefer the west for mountains.
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I know people that wont even DRIVE down there much less live, LOL. Place is miserable.
Yeah, I knew a guy in West Palm Beach who didn't ever want to go to Miami, and said that if he ever had to, he wouldn't go without a gun. He was a bit off his rocker in quite a few ways though.
I met a guy in a bar once in Clearwater, FL who owned a haulage firm and he told me he couldn't even get drivers who would do Miami runs.
I worked for Caravan in West Palm Beach for a short while--it's a taxi service that at the time specialized in medical runs, especially for Medicaid, Medicare, etc. I used to love doing Miami runs, since I had lived in Miami and I like it a lot. It was great because you'd pick up someone, drive them to a doctor (often in a hospital) in Miami, then you could go sightseeing or whatever you wanted to do while you waited for the cell phone call that they were done.
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This is what happens when you allow waves of undocumented immigration to happen -- all the scum of the earth end up moving here, forcing those who had lived here for decades to leave.
It sounds like maybe you just don't really like, um, "immigrants" there, Archie Bunker.
The problem there is that there aren't facts as to whether someone is self-centered, self-absorbed, etc.--those are subjective assessments. As such, one can't be "objectively right" or wrong about them.
There also aren't facts as to whether crime is bad. There are facts about things like whether someone was murdered, how many people were murdered, etc., but not about whether crime is bad. Good and bad are necessarily subjective.
Ok great. Cant get the same Latin vibe anywhere else but Miami? I'm glad you enjoy it, someone has to live in Miami. I would hate it for that reason but you love it so that's awesome.
I probably wouldn't have minded it, and I surely would have made more money than I've made . . . I still could always go back to school again and do it, but my age would make it more difficult to get established.
Not for you to take it the wrong way, but some ppl (such as myself) will point out things that are negative about S FL (road rage capitol, etc, etc...) and you seem to either ignore it or deny it by somehow twisting the words around and using some sorta creative analysis and not really admit the facts. It's creative, definitely.
Not for you to take it the wrong way, but some ppl (such as myself) will point out things that are negative about S FL (road rage capitol, etc, etc...) and you seem to either ignore it or deny it by somehow twisting the words around and using some sorta creative analysis and not really admit the facts. It's creative, definitely.
Well, I don't mind explaining what my thought process is on something like that. I apologize that this will be long (although even at that, I'm leaving a lot of detail out of this), but here's what I do:
First off, in general, when someone makes a claim like "Crime is bad in Florida", or "Florida is the Road Rage Capital of the US", the first thing I think isn't, "Gee, that must be right! Holy cow, I should avoid that place!" Rather, the first thing I think is, "Hmm, why is this person saying that?/Why do they believe that?/How would they know that--what is that claim based on, and what exactly is it referring to?"
In many cases, the answers to those questions are not very clear. In some cases, it's clear that people are referring to something that's a subjective evaluation only--like saying that something is bad. That's always subjective rather than being a fact. Still, I try to figure out what objective thing they might be referring to and why they have the subjective view that that objective thing is "bad".
In a case like yours, you gave a reference. So then I look at the reference and I do the same exact thing for the reference. I do not go, "Hmmm, the Sun-Sentinel printed this article so it must be right . . ." etc. Rather, I ask the same kinds of questions, such as , "What is the source of the information?", "Just what objective facts is the source referring to?", "Are the claims about the facts reliable?", "Do I believe the facts referred to warrant the conclusion?", etc.
And in this case, aside from three examples of incidents that I'd also call "road rage", and the fact that most of the article is sourced in interviews with a couple people who give their personal theories why road rage occurs, how to avoid it, etc., I see that source that "called South Florida the 'road rage capital'" is something called AutoVantage, and they did a survey.
So then I look up AutoVantage to see what it is and I see that it's a company--they call themselves a "leading automotive benefits club". My first thought there is, "Hmm . . . I wonder if there's any vested interest in this survey". But whether there is or isn't, then I look for more information about the survey, especially anything that will report their methodology, because that's what's going to tell me just what facts they're referring to and what will give me an idea of how they're coming to the conclusions about those facts that they're coming to.
The first thing I notice is that on their website (https://www.autovantage.com/global/s...vAUTVANonlgs01) it says nothing about any place being the "Road Rage Capital", and nothing about South Florida as a whole. The website does call the survey a "Road Rage Survey", but then what it more specifically says is that Miami is the "Least Courteous City" per a poll of "drivers throughout the country". Okay, so now I know that either the Sun-Sentinel isn't reporting things very accurately (Miami is different than South Florida, and "least courteous" is definitely different in my opinion than "road rage"), or AutoVantage isn't being very careful with their language in their press releases (which is usually how these things end up getting reported). (And by the way, while thinking about this stuff, I'm also aware that neither "courtesy" nor "road rage" are very well-defined in terms of observables, but that's what looking for the methodology and just what facts the source is referring to is supposed to help with.)
But no big deal, the language isn't as important maybe as what is actually being referred to. So as I read further into the methodology, I discover that "a total of 2,512 interviews were completed, evenly distributed among the designated markets". Then I think, "Hmmm, well, even if the designated markets ONLY meant the 10 cities that are listed as the most and least courteous, that means that what we're really talking about is what 251 people (well, plus .2 of a person somehow, lol) in each location said on the telephone when they were asked some questions." However, I'd guess that the survey was actually of people in more cities than 10, so if it was 20 cities, that means that only 125 people in each city were polled on the telephone, etc.
That doesn't sound like a heck of a lot of people to poll, in my opinion, and that's a problem I have in general with polls. I don't really agree with polling methodology in general (I should clarify, where polls of a small number of people are taken to represent what would be the opinion of a much larger group of people), but that's a whole other can of worms.
So I then look at what they actually asked the people in the polls. Well, it turns out that they asked them whether they observe people talking on cell phones, "driving too fast", tailgating, switching lanes "unsafely", eating or drinking, slamming on their brakes, and running red lights. They also asked if, in the last month, the person being interviewed honked their horns at another driver, cursed at them, waved their fists or arms, made an obscene gesture, reported the offending driver, or slammed into the back of the bad driver (lol). Next, they asked them whether they've done any of these things in the past week: talked on a cell phone, ate or drank, drove to fast, tailgated, switched lanes unsafely, ran a red light or slammed on the brakes. Finally, they asked what things people believed would help limit "road rage".
So I think, "Hmm, the facts being observed here then are talking on cell phones, eating or drinking while driving, etc." And I also note that some of the terms are very subjective. Just how fast is too fast? Just what counts as unsafe? I realize that surely different people being interviewed have different ideas about this. So what the survey is really telling us is how often those things happen. Maybe "Miami is the capital of people talking on cell phones while driving according to 100 people we talked to on the phone" or something like that.
Unlike the three examples given by the Sun-Sentinel, None of the things listed in the AutoVantage survey--except running into the back of the car in front of them, if that was done intentionally (the survey didn't actually ask that though) are anything that I'd classify as "road rage". It's also not anything that would be conventionally classified as "road rage". The idea was probably that the things reported would tend to lead to road rage, but I don't agree that the survey actually established that.
So then what I think is, "Boy, that language was sure misleading--whoever was responsible for it".
And for that matter, I'm not in favor of banning cell phone use while driving. I'm against those laws. I think people should be allowed to eat while they drive, etc.
It's not that I think that there are no road rage incidents. There certainly are, and maybe (South) Florida would have an unusual number of them. But the AutoVantage survey sure didn't establish anything like that, and it didn't even seem to try to establish anything like that. It would be an interesting study, but it would be a heck of a lot of work--far more than calling 2500 people on the telephone and getting them to answer questions during 6-8 minute interviews such as whether they ever see people eat while they're driving.
What we'd have to do instead is develop some kind of reasonable definition of "road rage" for the purposes of the survey--maybe something like "incidents precipitated by reactions to driving behavior that resulted in violence to persons or damage to property", where that is supported by police reports. Then we'd have to survey police reports for the different areas, and come up with per capita figures. That would be interesting, but the thing is that even if Miami or South Florida had the highest per capita rate of those, it just doesn't happen that often.
And the more relevant question is, "What does any of this mean for me?" Well, I know that people talk on their cell phones and eat when they drive. I know that people tailgate and cut you off when switching lanes, etc. I've driven a lot in Florida, I've driven a lot in the northeast, and I've driven a lot in other parts of the US and in other countries. People seem to tailgate and cut others off in traffic just about everywhere I've driven where there's any significant volume of traffic.
And in the hypothetical situation where we discover that South Florida has more road rage incidents per police reports than other places, I noted that it just doesn't seem to happen that often--I've seen no evidence of that at least, and I've driven a lot in Florida without seeing any evidence of that.
FWIW, and this is personal anecdote, but my son was the victim of road rage the first time he ever drove on 595. He went to switch lanes and cut someone off. He was then tailgated by this driver. My husband instructed son to exit highway in order to get away from driver. When they stopped at light on the ramp, the other driver got out of the car and came over to the car. My husband got out of the car and explained that his son was learning to drive and that he needed to calm down. Incident ended peacefully, but my son has not driven on the highway since (he has his license now).
Anecdote 2: The father of children's classmate was shot and murdered just 6 months ago in front of child on Pines Blvd at Post Office after incident of road rage. He was a federal law enforcement officer.
Well, I don't mind explaining what my thought process is on something like that. I apologize that this will be long (although even at that, I'm leaving a lot of detail out of this), but here's what I do:
First off, in general, when someone makes a claim like "Crime is bad in Florida", or "Florida is the Road Rage Capital of the US", the first thing I think isn't, "Gee, that must be right! Holy cow, I should avoid that place!" Rather, the first thing I think is, "Hmm, why is this person saying that?/Why do they believe that?/How would they know that--what is that claim based on, and what exactly is it referring to?"
In many cases, the answers to those questions are not very clear. In some cases, it's clear that people are referring to something that's a subjective evaluation only--like saying that something is bad. That's always subjective rather than being a fact. Still, I try to figure out what objective thing they might be referring to and why they have the subjective view that that objective thing is "bad".
In a case like yours, you gave a reference. So then I look at the reference and I do the same exact thing for the reference. I do not go, "Hmmm, the Sun-Sentinel printed this article so it must be right . . ." etc. Rather, I ask the same kinds of questions, such as , "What is the source of the information?", "Just what objective facts is the source referring to?", "Are the claims about the facts reliable?", "Do I believe the facts referred to warrant the conclusion?", etc.
And in this case, aside from three examples of incidents that I'd also call "road rage", and the fact that most of the article is sourced in interviews with a couple people who give their personal theories why road rage occurs, how to avoid it, etc., I see that source that "called South Florida the 'road rage capital'" is something called AutoVantage, and they did a survey.
So then I look up AutoVantage to see what it is and I see that it's a company--they call themselves a "leading automotive benefits club". My first thought there is, "Hmm . . . I wonder if there's any vested interest in this survey". But whether there is or isn't, then I look for more information about the survey, especially anything that will report their methodology, because that's what's going to tell me just what facts they're referring to and what will give me an idea of how they're coming to the conclusions about those facts that they're coming to.
The first thing I notice is that on their website (https://www.autovantage.com/global/s...vAUTVANonlgs01) it says nothing about any place being the "Road Rage Capital", and nothing about South Florida as a whole. The website does call the survey a "Road Rage Survey", but then what it more specifically says is that Miami is the "Least Courteous City" per a poll of "drivers throughout the country". Okay, so now I know that either the Sun-Sentinel isn't reporting things very accurately (Miami is different than South Florida, and "least courteous" is definitely different in my opinion than "road rage"), or AutoVantage isn't being very careful with their language in their press releases (which is usually how these things end up getting reported). (And by the way, while thinking about this stuff, I'm also aware that neither "courtesy" nor "road rage" are very well-defined in terms of observables, but that's what looking for the methodology and just what facts the source is referring to is supposed to help with.)
But no big deal, the language isn't as important maybe as what is actually being referred to. So as I read further into the methodology, I discover that "a total of 2,512 interviews were completed, evenly distributed among the designated markets". Then I think, "Hmmm, well, even if the designated markets ONLY meant the 10 cities that are listed as the most and least courteous, that means that what we're really talking about is what 251 people (well, plus .2 of a person somehow, lol) in each location said on the telephone when they were asked some questions." However, I'd guess that the survey was actually of people in more cities than 10, so if it was 20 cities, that means that only 125 people in each city were polled on the telephone, etc.
That doesn't sound like a heck of a lot of people to poll, in my opinion, and that's a problem I have in general with polls. I don't really agree with polling methodology in general (I should clarify, where polls of a small number of people are taken to represent what would be the opinion of a much larger group of people), but that's a whole other can of worms.
So I then look at what they actually asked the people in the polls. Well, it turns out that they asked them whether they observe people talking on cell phones, "driving too fast", tailgating, switching lanes "unsafely", eating or drinking, slamming on their brakes, and running red lights. They also asked if, in the last month, the person being interviewed honked their horns at another driver, cursed at them, waved their fists or arms, made an obscene gesture, reported the offending driver, or slammed into the back of the bad driver (lol). Next, they asked them whether they've done any of these things in the past week: talked on a cell phone, ate or drank, drove to fast, tailgated, switched lanes unsafely, ran a red light or slammed on the brakes. Finally, they asked what things people believed would help limit "road rage".
So I think, "Hmm, the facts being observed here then are talking on cell phones, eating or drinking while driving, etc." And I also note that some of the terms are very subjective. Just how fast is too fast? Just what counts as unsafe? I realize that surely different people being interviewed have different ideas about this. So what the survey is really telling us is how often those things happen. Maybe "Miami is the capital of people talking on cell phones while driving according to 100 people we talked to on the phone" or something like that.
Unlike the three examples given by the Sun-Sentinel, None of the things listed in the AutoVantage survey--except running into the back of the car in front of them, if that was done intentionally (the survey didn't actually ask that though) are anything that I'd classify as "road rage". It's also not anything that would be conventionally classified as "road rage". The idea was probably that the things reported would tend to lead to road rage, but I don't agree that the survey actually established that.
So then what I think is, "Boy, that language was sure misleading--whoever was responsible for it".
And for that matter, I'm not in favor of banning cell phone use while driving. I'm against those laws. I think people should be allowed to eat while they drive, etc.
It's not that I think that there are no road rage incidents. There certainly are, and maybe (South) Florida would have an unusual number of them. But the AutoVantage survey sure didn't establish anything like that, and it didn't even seem to try to establish anything like that. It would be an interesting study, but it would be a heck of a lot of work--far more than calling 2500 people on the telephone and getting them to answer questions during 6-8 minute interviews such as whether they ever see people eat while they're driving.
What we'd have to do instead is develop some kind of reasonable definition of "road rage" for the purposes of the survey--maybe something like "incidents precipitated by reactions to driving behavior that resulted in violence to persons or damage to property", where that is supported by police reports. Then we'd have to survey police reports for the different areas, and come up with per capita figures. That would be interesting, but the thing is that even if Miami or South Florida had the highest per capita rate of those, it just doesn't happen that often.
And the more relevant question is, "What does any of this mean for me?" Well, I know that people talk on their cell phones and eat when they drive. I know that people tailgate and cut you off when switching lanes, etc. I've driven a lot in Florida, I've driven a lot in the northeast, and I've driven a lot in other parts of the US and in other countries. People seem to tailgate and cut others off in traffic just about everywhere I've driven where there's any significant volume of traffic.
And in the hypothetical situation where we discover that South Florida has more road rage incidents per police reports than other places, I noted that it just doesn't seem to happen that often--I've seen no evidence of that at least, and I've driven a lot in Florida without seeing any evidence of that.
So what it all means for me is, "Not much".
No offense, but I honestly think that you must be living under a very large rock, or you just fail to see reality through your rose-tinted spectacles.
Road rage, reckless driving, death, injury....major problem down here. If you want to sit there and deny that, you're nothing but part of the problem.
No offense, but I honestly think that you must be living under a very large rock, or you just fail to see reality through your rose-tinted spectacles.
Road rage, reckless driving, death, injury....major problem down here. If you want to sit there and deny that, you're nothing but part of the problem.
It's bizarre to me that you read all of the post you quoted and that's what you got out of it. As I said in that post: "First off, in general, when someone makes a claim like "Crime is bad in Florida", or "Florida is the Road Rage Capital of the US", the first thing I think isn't, "Gee, that must be right! Holy cow, I should avoid that place!" Rather, the first thing I think is, "Hmm, why is this person saying that?/Why do they believe that?/How would they know that--what is that claim based on, and what exactly is it referring to?""
You'll note that further into the post, I also say this: "It's not that I think that there are no road rage incidents."
So what exactly do you think that I'm denying? I guess that "Road rage is a major problem".
Let's put that through what I explained that I do, and start with this question:
In saying not just that there are road rage incidents, but that "road rage is a major problem", what specifically, in terms of observables are you referring to? The answer would be something that other people can easily look at to confirm that those observables are as you say they are.
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