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On the news tonight they punt a car that runs on water as the answer to all our problems. You drive around with a jug of water and everything's cool right? The end of the clip is quite interesting. They say there are no plans to unveil the vehicle at showrooms, or to roll the vehicle out in mass. Why? They don't say. I'll tell you why: the amount of energy the vehicle requires to separate hydrogen and run on it...is well, not close to the sort of equations we get with ordinary petrol.

So it's back to what Kunstler says: we can't run the world's highway systems the way we're running them now with any combination of alternatives. Even so, the media and consumers of media are dumb enough to consider cars running on water a story worth featuring in headline news. It's about as dumb as seeing a hole in the road and expecting to get to the other side. Maybe it happens in the movies that cars fly over gaps, or even horses pulling carriages make the magical leap. In reality there is a force that's quite important to know about. It's called gravity. In energy economics, there's something like gravity: it's called depletion of a limited non-renewable resource. I have a feeling we're going to try to make a jump across the crater in the road anyway.

Crash - nearly, and then again!

Before work this morning I took back a Resident Evil DVD and on my way back down African Road a black Fiat impatient at the intersection almost plowed into me. I had to slow down at the dog's leg to turn right and so anticipating I wouldn't, lurched forwward. I watch the car swimming in my rearview mirror, noticing a young blonde in it. Then on Glenhove Road in the Houghton area I hopped across an intersection and then had to stop because of a traffic jam on the other side. So I see the black Fiat growing very large in my rear view mirror and then lurching left and right as she tried to stop in time. I allowed my bumper to drift half a metre further, which is why we managed to stop in time.

I reiterate: drivers in Joburg can't drive. There's this obsession with speedy manuoevre's and the sheer number of crumpled bumpers smashed rear and and front lights demonstrates that there's signal failture between reality and the driving daydream. You can't drive like this in a congested setting like Johannesburg. And being on the road is not a motorised fashion-ramp (see how fast I go). Mondoza and Ashley Callie have proved that haven't they? Do you want to prove it too?

Joburg Drivers: KOOO KOOOOO

On the way to work each day I see a lot of cars in Joburg that are scratched, bumpers dinged, indicator lights gauged out. Check it out the next time you're in traffic. It's not surprising when you see how nuts Joburg's drivers are. You'd swear there is a pregnant woman, or someone bleeding to death, racing towards an emergency the way the GP number plates make desperate dives and dashes in and out of traffic flow. You've got to wonder: is that ego boost really worth paying R1000 excess in an insurance claim, and the bother that's involved? Is it worth risking life and limb - yours or worse, someone elses? If you think so you're a bozo.

Ego of course plays an important - if stupid - role on our roads. It's the young and dumb that wind up dead. The guy with the biggest ego on the road is most likely to find himself (usually it's a him) on his back, one of 12 000 a year, in the countries' morgue. Tens of thousands more survive, with injuries that stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Today a big Toyota 4x4 revved grandly and impatiently, just missing my rear bumper, skidding by my passenger door mirror, and doing a really impressive dive back into the traffic stream two vehicles ahead of me. Great move man! Except the same vehicle remained 5 metres ahead of me all the way up Glenhove until he turned right, into Rosebank Mall's parking lot. I'm sure it was really worth the impressive manoeuvres to get to the parking lot - I know - a very urgent appointment to shop, 5 seconds at most, faster than you would have gotten there.

The only accident I have been in so far was in Johannesburg. An impatient driver in peak hour decided to turn in front of the the bakkie I was in. We were only going 60 or so km per hour, and the idiot who turned was hardly going 15km/h. I got a diced up knee as a result, 13 deep mattress stitched. The car was a right off, and the idiot who turned in front of us just got tired of waiting at the traffic light, and seeing the light going amber took a chance.

Yesterday the paper had a report of carnage outside Harrismith. Bodies flying out of bakkies. Not sure if the need for speed is rational guys. Is it worth dying because you want to go a little bit faster. End of the day, you just get stuck behind another car. Catch a wake up. Be patient, just like everyone else. Or do the ego thing, win a few brownie points, call your insurer and start booking yourself in the morgue.