SA drivers, world champs, or better yet, chumps.
'Our idiocy on the nation's roads results in in excess of an horrific 16,000 lives being lost annually'
ABBA FLINT of Glen Marais writes:
Every week I am shocked and distressed to observe the most graphic examples of South African’s incredible stupidity on our shameful roads of blood and gore.
I see motor vehicles reduced to mangled wrecks and tragic stories of crash victims suffering horrific injuries and even death. Sometimes I am even ashamed to be a South African.
The Kempton Express renders a valuable community service in giving such prominence to the terrible road carnage of vehicular and human destruction. It might make me very unpopular with my fellow South Africans, but I don’t care. I call them stupid because that is exactly what it is. Despite the regular shock features in the media showing the nationwide horror of road-kill we never seem to learn the lesson of responsible defensive driving.
It might not be too serious if moronic road hogs only wiped themselves out by driving while drunk and at excessive speeds, but they are also slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent motorists and pedestrians in an orgy of death. Tiny children are orphaned and often whole families are tragically wiped out, but still our mindless Rambo drivers assume they know best, and think that speed and alcohol are not the major causes of fatal crashes. They persist in their abominable road etiquette although South Africa has the worst road death stats worldwide. If there was a world title for road morons South Africa would not be chokers and we would easily be world champs, or better yet, chumps.
Our idiocy on the nation’s roads results in in excess of an horrific 16,000 lives being lost annually and many more than that being maimed or becoming paraplegics.The frightening road cull stats are even in excess of the fatalities in many wars.
Can we South Africans please wake up and smell the coffee. The crisis is certainly not insurmountable. Many law-abiding countries like Australia have succeeded in curbing the carnage with harsh visible and effective traffic policing, forcing people to become more responsible citizens.
Ultimately if we can’t take responsibility for our actions maybe the big stick is the only solution.
