The View from my Bicycle (Column)

Strictly speaking, the view was partly from my car, but my bicycle was on the back seat.

On a random weekend on a major traffic artery in South Africa (known as the N1), as I was entering Bloemfontein, a car from a few spaces back overtook two other vehicles and a truck. To give you an idea of how phenomenally crazy-stupid this was, the highway was coming to an end in 500 metres, and in 400 metres a major artery joined the N1, coming from one side, meaning you couldn't tell if traffic was about to face you in the oncoming lane.

The character in question got away with it, but had he merely waited 10 seconds he would have found himself in exactly the same situation.

A similar maneuver happened on my return, coming back into Johannesburg. This time it was a silver minibus, quite new, that found itself in the wrong slipway (the M1 to Johannesburg rather than the N1). The guy swerved at the last second, dodged a series of yellow signs and entered the highway at a virtual right handle, which meant he had to swing violently left again in order to avoid crashing into the adjacent lane. The driver (with many passengers on board) also got away with this.

About 5km further, scattered over the road, and alongside bright blue flashing neon, were the remains of a multiple vehicle pile-up. 4 vehicles were being towed away. The accident appeared to have occurred 30 – 45 minutes previously.

You might think that I cruised past the human carnage, and escaped the near misses with a sense of smug superiority. Not at all. It scared the hell out of me. It gave me pause to worry that cycling on these death straits is even more perilous a prospect when one thinks about the random nature of motoring. In the final kilometre of my trip I went over a newly formed donga sliced out of the road, at least half a foot deep (and not more than 1km from the M1). It's difficult to over estimate how damaging that one hazard alone is, nevermind how dangerous to someone driving at night and perhaps slightly under the influence.

What is my point? The people on the countries roads represent possibly the top 50% of the caliber of a nation's population. By top I mean the wealthier, and possibly more intelligent 50% (although I admit this is by no means a certainty). If the top 50% are capable of such craziness, it calls into question the potential we human beings have to get ourselves out of a mess.

There appears to be consensus that on issues ranging from politics, to our energy conundrum, to food, "people out there are smart enough to come up with a solution." That's true. There are a handful of people, perhaps a few, smart enough to solve some of our problems. Unfortunately, the majority of people are not very smart. To give you an idea of what's not smart is when you want something very badly, although objectively speaking it's not very important (like getting from A to B say 10 seconds or 10 minutes quicker), and you're willing to sacrifice your life for this sort of 'blind ambition'. And of course, you're willing to sacrifice the lives of others.

The problem is the number of people who have some sense are outnumbered by a very large quantity who know a little about a lot. They know enough to think that they are clever, and that makes for a very dangerous situation. It causes over-confidence, and that collective arrogance is what I see from my bicycle, and when I have my bicycle in tow. It's very, very scary.