I'm in the UK, and by the time you've reached a certain age, we've all heard of families torn about by bad driving. The couple who we bought our house from, the mother pulled out in front of two racers just down the road from us and ended up with life changing injuries, unable to walk and with brain damage. A little boy at our local nursery died along with his father hitting a van head on who'd crossed the road taking a corner too fast.
It's not just boy racers, but plenty of older men and women who are reckless and inpatient in their usual driving. There are people who think that their luxury cars are an excuse to break the road rules as well as the rules of common courtesy.
Despite the UK having one of the safest road networks in the world, still around 75 people die or are seriously injured per week in car accidents. For a preventable injury that is still far too high.
Purely anecdotal, I noticed there were far more people in fancy cars going at ridiculous speeds in ridiculous stretches of roads with loads of pedestrians and cyclists around when I lived in Bristol compared to the Netherlands. I called them CICs: "Cunts In Cars".
Road design probably plays part in this; a comparatively wide fully asphalted road probably isn't the best design for 20mph. Traffic calming and all that.
It's a prevalent attitude of successful people who are used to lower ethical standards applied to them and being given priority in their day-to-day life. An extra factor is that premium cars (irrespective of wealth) are sought after by people with negative personality traits [1].
I don't know why the difference between UK and Netherlands, maybe due to differences in income equity and judicial fairness? I imagine the behaviour is worse in countries with worse social fairness (Russia, even US?).
In my observation, in the Netherlands someone with a flashy car is quicker seen as a show-off. Generally speaking, it has a somewhat more grounded and egalitarian culture. Someone calling themselves a "Baron such and such" or "Sir so and so" like they do in the UK? The entire country will roll their eyes.
In the UK, it's somewhere in-between the mainland European and American attitudes, where someone with a flashy car is seen as deserving of it through their hard work.
And not everyone who drives like an idiot has a flashy car by the way; lots of those pumped VW things and whatnot as well (in both countries).
It's not just boy racers, but plenty of older men and women who are reckless and inpatient in their usual driving. There are people who think that their luxury cars are an excuse to break the road rules as well as the rules of common courtesy.
Despite the UK having one of the safest road networks in the world, still around 75 people die or are seriously injured per week in car accidents. For a preventable injury that is still far too high.