Epistemic status: low effort crackpot hypothesis, probably totally wrong.
I used to be confused about how the majority of Americans drive even though it’s so intuitively dangerous it seemed like it ought to incapacitate many people with terror. I think I have an average amount of cowardice, but whenever I got on a fast road while practicing for my driver’s test, I looked at the masses and their velocities around me and thought, “This is clearly a terrible idea.”
I paid for 10+ hours of pro instruction because this was important to get right, and padded out the rest of my mandatory practice time with partners. I felt slightly gaslit when the professionals and the boyfriends alike said, “It’s fine, you’re not going to get into an accident, everyone feels like this at first.” I WONDER WHY. But the accident rate, while high enough that driving is the most lethal thing Americans regularly do, is lower than I’d intuitively predict.
I was confused about how most people get over the hump of going through the highly lethal beginner phase, which I failed to punch through for two years in my late twenties. Then I made the most progress in the five months I was on testosterone, when I felt much calmer behind the wheel. Now my belief is that driving societies work because people learn in their teens, when they have high T (testosterone levels peak in people’s late teens or mid twenties, regardless of sex). They get enough experience in this fearless period that they’re okay on the road in their more cautious adulthood. I probably would have been fine if I’d learned in my teens, but Korea’s public transit is so good I never bothered.