Driving

More Killed On World’s Roads Than War Or Disease

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Mirror.co.uk
BLAIR: GREATEST THREAT IS BAD DRIVING
By Bob Roberts, Deputy Political Editor 24/04/2007

BAD driving kills 1.2million people a year and is a bigger danger to the world than war or disease, Tony Blair said yesterday.

A thousand young people around the globe die every day in crashes and only Aids kills more young men. In the UK, 70 children are killed or seriously injured every week.

Oxfam says around a million have died in conflicts since 2001. The Prime Minister teamed up with ex-Formula 1 racing champion Michael Schumacher to call for action on the shocking death toll.

Mr Blair, speaking at the start of the UN global road safety week, said: “Every minute of every day a child is killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads.

“Road crashes are the second leading cause of death for young men after HIV/Aids and in some African countries more than 70 per cent of those killed on the roads are young breadwinners. It is becoming clear that road injury has a serious impact on the wider development goals we’re all trying to achieve.”

Schumacher said: “Road crashes kill on the scale of malaria or tuberculosis.”

Both men called for a UN conference to work out a strategy for cutting road deaths, which could involve British driving instructors being sent to the Third World to improve training.

Bob.Roberts@Mirror.Co.Uk

I’ll let you decide.

International Driving

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Don’t know if it’s just Oaxaca or maybe it’s the whole of Mexico. However, my dentist says that drivers in Oaxaca are worse than in Mexico City! But in Xalapa they were ever so polite…big fines meted out if they are not.

But you are taking your life in your hands in Oaxaca. The taxis and buses are the worst…speeding, honoring no lanes…forcing you over. No stop signs, lights, when there are lights and when they are working, are suggestions only. And then there are the “topes” or speed bumps everywhere. Never know when one is coming up unless you watch the cars ahead and hope they slow down…however, one, with drivers from Veracruz, didn’t slow down until they got to the tope. Then they stopped. Bam. Their little car could do it. My big Toyota Land Cruiser couldn’t. So I slammed right into the back of their car. Good thing no one was hurt. Good thing for insurance.

Actually I expected this…but thought I’d get side-swiped by a bus. Now I know why Mexican immigrants in the north get into so much trouble! A couple years ago in my home town in Oregon I was T-boned by an immigrant going through a red light at about 60 miles an hour…she had no insurance. No one has insurance here except the expats.

There are rules here…just not the posted ones. And heaven help you if you don’t obey them! Boils down to buses and taxis and very small cars do what they want…and that includes just about everyone. Except the gringa with the Toyota with a US license plate. Yes, I know I should have put more space between me and car in front. You get conditioned to keep close…cars, buses and taxis will try to edge into even a sliver of space forcing you over. If you leave a lot of room…say a couple car lengths you never get to where you are going because the whole city will move in front of you.

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Thailand is no better. Was rear-ended by a motorcycle there once. Today got an email from Bob who is living in Thailand: “Now if I could only learn to control my mini-rage reactions at Thai drivers,” he says.

“Earlier this week I was driving in a line of autos and a bus tried to pass the whole line of 5-6 cars. He encountered oncoming traffic and cut in front of me–not really in front more like forced me onto the shoulder.

I offered selected auditory and visual feedback. (Had to laugh because the same thing happens here in Mexico!)

But the curious cultural phenomena is that I was the heavy in that I lost my cool. But driving is very unsafe here–most trips (even to the market) produce an anxiety or at least an edge of apprehension. And the Thais cannot park. It is humerous to watch them attempt a parallel park, most often most of the car is left somewhere out on the street. And I have two significant dings being clipped me while I was parked. Oh well…..” 

I think I detect a note of Thai-speak in that syntax.

Pushkar India

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The driver has to ask 5 times for directions to Pushkar (no male pride here). Upon entering the village a guy sitting at a table lets down a red and white pole barrier and asks for a 15 rupee village tax. This is only for tourist cars…Bob says disgustedly that Oregon is really dumb.

In high season the ghats (steps or landing to the lake) will be full but this day there is hardly anyone at the ghats to bathe and obtain blessings in the holy water of Pushkar Lake-only a few young backpackers lounging at a refreshment table near the water. On the way back to the car we came upon two young men who were here from Delhi to take their engineer exams so they can qualify for a job on the railroad. Always the first question is “How do you like India”� Always I answer that I like India very much-especially the people. I beat them to the invariable next question: “Do you have children”� It is good in India to have sons.

Back to the road to Jaipur I see a sign advertising the “Pink Floyd Cafe Hotel…Wish You Wear Hear.” On the way out of the village there is a sign: “Thank’s.” We see men and women working on the road excavation in 100 degree heat loading gravel into the back of a truck using shallow pans carried on their heads…a man on a tractor with a hot pink turban…no speed limit and no cops on the road…hundreds of trucks waiting to load acres of marble…trucks all orange and painted with various designs…trucks are king of the road in India too…tribal woman with red over pink and orange over purple and flowered and multicolored and rings and big jewelry in their noses…we see STD everywhere but it stands for the State Telephone Department not Sexually Transmitted Disease.

The two lane Highway is being widened to four lanes with funds borrowed from the World Bank. But not in time for us with cars passing trucks honking that are passing trucks honking with motorcycles here and there honking on each side and in and out…camels pulling carts on the shoulders…at night vehicles use no lights honking…only for signaling an emergency like horns in the US. The last 12 miles are in the dark and by the time we get to Jaipur I am a frazzle…I have a headache from the diesel fumes…my ears hurt…no more road travel for me in the third world! And then I’ll be damned…after passing all those trucks…honking honking…the driver pulls over for tea!

Chittorgarh India

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On the way out of town the next morning, I am not surprised to see a dead cow that had been hit by a car. “The government will come and pick it up for the hide, (an hopefully not the meat) the taxi driver says, but the owner will be saying “where is my cow…”

Our travel options to the city of Jaipur is overnight sleeper bus, overnight sleeper train or taxi by day. Since we wanted to see the village of Pushkar and the countryside we opted for the taxi. Big mistake! National highway number 8 from Mumbai to Delhi is a narrow two lane road with bumper to bumper trucks with “please blow the horn” on the back of every truck; we know that India’s commerce is alive and well. Requirements for vehicle registration include good brakes, good horn and good luck. (Not necessarily in that order.)

It is Sunday and motorcyclists with women in beautiful saris sitting sideways on the back are traveling 50 miles to a Jain temple for a special festival. We see big shiny aluminum pots lined up on stoves in roadside stands. We stop for tea and see garbanzos, dried green peas and lentils soaking-waiting to be cooked for the day’s meal in the evening.

I had assumed that the brand new Indian-made car would have A/C but unfortunately it doesn’t and soon I am very irritable. I forsake tea for a watermelon flavored Fanta. We sit on plastic woven beds with rusted metal frames provided for people for their afternoon tea and rest. Children riding by on their bikes laugh and wave. We don’t know what to make of the staring adults and laughing children…

The road to Cittorgarh was on a flat plateau and we see the Fort, our first destination, high on a hill. The driver drives so fast through the town it is hard to see anything. Lonely Planet says the Fort epitomises the whole “romantic doomed ideal of Rajput chivalry.”

Three times the Fort was sacked, the last time by the Mughal emperor, Akbar, and on each occasion “jauhar” was declared in the face of impossible odds: the men donned the saffron robes of martyrdom and rode out from the the Fort to certain death, while the women and children immolated themselves on a huge funeral pyre-the second time a whopping 32,000 men and 13,000 women losing their lives. Apparently, honour was more important than life for these people. Today the Fort is a ruins but about 5000 people still live within it’s confines.