Motoring Mania

Today a white Hyundai over took me on a road with multiple speed bumps. Picture this. A vehicle is overtaking yours and others, and rocking madly over each successive speed bump. I suppose it does not compute that those 'things' in the road were put there to persuade drivers to sustain a more sedate pace. Then some jerk comes along and goes:"Why are these people driving so slowly here?" and plays bumper bouncy car.

Also...I'm approaching a red traffic light, and slowing down so I don't have to come to a complete stop. I can already see the light on the other end has gone amber. So a silver Honda slides by on my left to fill in the 4 metre gap, missing my left review mirror by a few millimetres. He succeeds in getting ahead of me so he can stop at the traffic light and join and long traffic jam that takes us further up the road. For that manuoevre he is rewarded with 3 metres, and perhaps getting to work 2-3 seconds sooner.

There is an amazing antidote to this sort of arrogant, idiot driving. One is scraping your car against another one. This can cost some thousand rands to repair (a reward for proving how extraordinarily clever you are). There is also the other cost - you can easily kill or maim yourself or someone else where there is a vehicle impact.

Currently 1.2 million people die per year from road accidents around the world. If you have a pretty big football stadium, say seating 50 000, you'd need 24 to fill with the dead bodies from all those road accidents. If you find that statistic hard to imagine, ask yourself whether you know anyone who has died in a car accident. I know of two people who died in the last week.
Your chances of dying in a car accident are almost as good as dying of a heart attack, and better than cancer.

Here are a few tips if you'd like to live longer:
- pay attention to the road
- drive slower (it saves fuel and could save your life)
- don't break traffic laws

These may seem stupid, but the vast majority of road carnage occurs either in the process of violating a traffic rule, or shortly after. One more thing. If someone does something stupid on the road, don't hoot or give them the finger. Chances are you will encourage the aggressive streak not only in them, but in you.