If Solo, Fly

Departure: 15:35
Arrival: 17:00
Travel time: 1:25

According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control:
If you're aged between 15-24 years in the USA, then you have a 72.9% chance of dying in a car accident (2002 figures). Next is food poisoning (10.9%), drowning (4.1%) or a fall (1.6%). The rest are even lower: fire, suffocation,natural cause (0.4%) (eg spider bite or bee sting).

If you're 35-44 then your chance of dying in a car accident is 41.2% and from poisoning 35.9%. Fall 4%, drowning 3.1% etc.

Driving in South Africa is a risk. There were 15 000 road deaths in 2004, or 42 a day. These averages rise sharply over the December (Christmas) period.

The most dangerous road in South Africa, as far as I know, is the 200km section on either side of Laingsburg. The combination of nothingness, straight road, and the heat, is enough to induce an automobile-type euthanasia.

The problem is that no one is accountable, so no one takes responsibility, so roads deteriorate, and even more people die. 15 000 people a year is more dead than the number of US casualties thus far in Iraq. Not even 2000 US troups have died in the War in Iraq. We have weird priorities don't we. We should be terrified by our own cars, not by terrorists.

I think advertising and awareness is crucial to saving lives on the roads. 30% of deaths are caused by people driving too close to the car in front. It's vewry easy to prevent, if you'rew aware of it. An ad on the radio costs a few hundred rand, but it can save the country millions, and bring loved one's home.

I rewcently wrote an English letter to the Volksblad (an Afrikaans paper) titled: Cyclists are Vulnerable, Driver's Aren't. Maybe I need to translate it for it to appear in print. There is a lively debate where I am after a few cyclists have been killed on the roads. Recently, on Supercycling, they expressed concern about the number of cyclists killed in Gauteng.

My letter was in response to a driver who was pointing out all the faults of cyclists. It is totally the wrong attitude for cyclists to blame car driver's and vice versa. The point is that people are dying on the road because people are not careful, and I feel the onus is on the driver because they are the one's who leave died cyclists lying around, and it takes just the slightest movement on the steering wheel to provide cyclists with enough space so they don't knock them over.

The attitude all over the world is that cars are fun, and enjoyable, but in reality, they are everyday missiles, and projectiles that we carry ourselves in. It is our best chance of dying, or killing, on any given day, after heart attacks and cancers.
See:
http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html
15 million people, however, die of starvation every year, according to Oxfam.