Witness

Every day we hear of collisions taking place throughout the country, but rarely do we bear witness, and hopefully, even more rare are we directly involved ourselves. As a reminder, in Spain the law is that as a bystander to an automobile crash we are duty bound to render assistance until the scene comes under the control of emergency services

It was my unpleasant experience to be primary witness to a crash in the early hours of the day. In telling this tale it should serve as a good caution as the circumstances are all too ripe for the type of collision that occurred.

The place was the town of Vilamarxant, to the east of downtown Valencia. It is one of a hundred such towns with narrow streets that crisscross throughout. Driving through such areas is a nightmare, because typically there are those drivers who do know the rules on right-of-way, and those who do not have a clue.

On this occasion I had driven my car to a place where I wanted to park, and after locking the car I waited for a passing car before crossing the street. As the approaching car drew abreast of the cross street there suddenly appeared from the right a van that was moving at about 50 kmh speed. That resulted in a severe side impact that caved in the passenger door of the car. Unfortunately, the car was being driven by a mother taking her daughter to school, and the daughter was sitting in the front seat. I estimate that the daughter was about eleven.

For this to happen in front of my eyes was a real shock that made me actually jump. My mind slowed the action down to a manageable level so that I could take in what was happening. One minute the car was proceeding along towards me, and all seemed to be normal. The appearance of the van from the side street was so unexpected as there was no sound to forewarn of its presence. It struck the car as though it was a precision guided missile, and on impact it bounced back.

Barely a moment had passed before both drivers were out of their vehicles accusing each other of being in the wrong. There were several things wrong with this situation in my view. It’s good if we review each carefully.

The general rule is that when at a cross street, the right of way goes to the vehicle approaching you from your right. So, instantly the mother was suspect as being the cause of the collision for not giving way to the van that came from her right.
Both vehicles were proceeding at a speed far in excess of safety. Both drivers seemed to think that no one else was using the road that day. I had just made that same drive down that street and had avoided a crash by driving at walking pace at the crossings. I did encounter a car from my right to whom I owed right of way, and that was done safely.
The mother had her child sitting in the front passenger seat, although she was about eleven. The law does not disallow this provided the child is properly restrained, but in reality this is not a good idea. The young girl appeared not to have been physically injured, but she suffered the brunt of the impact and was quite seriously shaken.
Whether driving through a small town or an urbanisation the probability for this type of crash is very high. Both converging drivers should be prepared to stop and agree who is to proceed first. However, I’m sure it doesn’t always happen that way, but we do otherwise at our peril.

When the local police came and surveyed the scene they advised the lady driver that she was the cause of the crash as she had failed to give way to the van. She protested that she was driving on the priority road, but it was pointed out to her that both roads had equal standing.

That was not a very good start to one’s day.

Copyright (c) 2008 Eugene Carmichael

(SEVEN) WRONG-WAY WALLY

MOTORING´S SEVEN MORTAL SINS


One: Overtaking on two-lane, two-way traffic streets anywhere in Spain. Also making a left turn across oncoming traffic.
Two: Speeding, i.e. exceeding the speed limit, or using excessive speed for road conditions at the time.
Three: Exhaustion. i.e. Driver Fatigue
Four: Driving while impaired by drink or drugs.
Five: Dangerous and reckless driving without regard for others.
Six: Tailgating and inattention.
Seven: Driving on the wrong side of the road and clockwise around a roundabout.

(SEVEN) WRONG-WAY WALLY

There are two mistakes the holder of a U.K. license must never make when driving in Continental Europe. They are:

(a) Never, inadvertently drive on the left hand side of the road;
(b) Never drive round a roundabout clockwise.

These are unforgivable sins to commit, and the penalty for such unintended mistakes can be draconian. It is such a shame that there exists such a difference between countries over something so fundamental as which side of the road to habitually use that can produce such devastating effects. Sure we live with the challenge of different languages, sometimes leading to mistakes and misunderstandings, some costing a lot of money and/or embarrassment, but rarely actual death.

How easy is it to make such a mistake? After driving a right-hand drive car in a left-hand road system all of one’s adult life we have a habit, something that we no longer have to think about. We approach our vehicle to the right side, open the door and get in expecting the steering wheel to be on that side. We start the engine and shift the gear with our left hand, which for most people who are naturally right-handed, is an unnatural thing to do.

When we approach a road junction from a minor side road to enter into a major road, to turn left means not to have to cross over to the other side. Only when we turn right need we do that. The roundabout was probably a British invention, it being such a logical idea. Why then, here on the Continent do the Brits have such a tough time dealing with doing the roundabout dance? Probably, because here in Spain it’s a new innovation and everybody else hasn’t a clue. Granted, Spain has some highly artistic examples but what to do, that’s the question.

It would seem a difficult thing to go round a roundabout the wrong way, but some people, usually with Rental Car stickers on the back do manage to lose the plot. So, do I have anything positive to suggest as to how to get it right every time, as we must? Well, let’s be mindful of the following:

- As I’ve said, problems are likely to arise when approaching a major road from a minor side road. We come to the stop sign, and as bad luck would have it, there’s not another vehicle around to give us a clue. That is when it is so easy to turn left and set off in the left lane. It will feel entirely natural, but if we make it as far as the first bend in the road, I shudder to think of what will likely happen next. We cannot make this mistake, so we must constantly make certain that the action we are taking is correct. How? At the stop sign, before setting off, with your left arm, that’s the one that is by the window if you are driving a left-hand drive, make sure that your elbow is pointing at the centre of the road. If it is you will be on the right-hand side of the road, and your motto will be, “the right side is the right (correct) side”.

When going back to the U.K. and hiring a car there, simply reverse the procedure, although it will come more naturally to end up on the correct side. There, your motto will be, “ the right side is the wrong side!”

- Going the wrong way around a roundabout would seem to be a more difficult thing to do, but it does happen in spite of efforts to ensure that it does not. On approaching a roundabout there is the initial triangle with red border with three arrows indicating counter-clockwise flow around the circle, and an advisory to give-way to traffic already within the circle. Then, there is the round sign with blue background that indicates the message is mandatory, and that shows three arrows indicating counter-clockwise traffic flow. But strong habit says we should be going clockwise around the circle. To get it right requires concentration. We have to interrupt our conversation and focus. To do otherwise is to dance with disaster.

I have never personally met a driver coming around the circle the wrong way, but someone was telling me of his experience, and he said that it was like a slow-motion ballet. First, there was the recognition from across the circle that something was wrong. When his mind finally figured it out the only way he avoided the collision was to drive up onto the carefully sculpted centre garden while the car behind him went off to the right with much blowing of horns and curses galore. Meanwhile, the offending car, proudly displaying his rental sticker went the wrong way down the one-way street and disappeared off to the left.

What a Wally!

How to cope driving a right-hand drive in Europe or left-hand drive in England? I haven’t a clue!

Death on the roads? It doesn’t have to end like that!
Don’t overtake on two-way streets. Save your life for those who love you!
Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael

MOTORING´S SEVEN MORTAL SINS

One: Overtaking on two-lane, two-way traffic streets anywhere in Spain. Also making a left turn across oncoming traffic.
Two: Speeding, i.e. exceeding the speed limit, or using excessive speed for road conditions at the time.
Three: Exhaustion. i.e. Driver Fatigue
Four: Driving while impaired by drink or drugs.
Five: Dangerous and reckless driving without regard for others.
Six: Tailgating and inattention.
Seven: Driving on the wrong side of the road and clockwise around a roundabout.

(FIVE & SIX): DANGEROUS DRIVING, TAILGATING AND INATTENTION


I’m certain that I’m not crazy! I don’t go round taking note of everybody’s driving mistakes, or commenting to myself every time someone does something strange or stupid. What’s more, all my fellow road users are ladies and gentlemen, not crazy so-and so’s. These things I do, or more to the point, don’t do for my own sanity. I am constantly refining my own driving so as not to be the source of annoyance to other road users. There is, however, a breed of motorist for whom we cannot do anything right other than get off the road so that they can have it all to themselves and they are the Tailgaters. Like alligators, there they are, snapping at our heels, driving us to distraction.

I try to see inside the heads of people whose behaviour is so wantonly bad on the road, and perhaps not surprisingly I come up with a blank. There’s no point in asking what are they thinking because they are not thinking anything. So, if not thought, instinct then? That doesn’t seem to be right either. Even an army of ants appear to have better manners and more method. Perhaps they are show-offs, people who must draw attention to themselves. If this is the case the attention they draw is not complimentary. Stupidity and ignorance are never complimentary. Men, who behave so very badly, are seen as little obnoxious boys who never grew up. The women they seek to impress are usually turned stone cold against them.

Driving is a necessary privilege in every country in the world. It is not a guaranteed right, which is why we have to have a driving permit. That is something that can be withdrawn if we choose to blatantly flout the rules. That’s fair enough. Give us reasonable driving exams; do nothing to complicate the process by which we get our permit, and then, should we choose to turn out like the ill-mannered and ignorant guest at the ball, we get exorcised and sent for re-education.

The points system aims to do just that. It will seek out those who can only be dealt with by monetary fine and re-education as to what makes a good motorist. I wish those people who needed this information the most would read the below-noted, but I doubt if that will happen. (The use of “he” actually means he or she).

- A good motorist is first and foremost considerate of other road users. He is not threatening to pedestrians or cyclists, and he keeps his distance from animals.
- He practises courtesy by allowing others to complete their manoeuvres by extending to them a little patience.
- He refrains from the needless use of the horn to sound his impatience. He leaves enough time to get to where he needs to go without having to climb over others to get there.
- He definitely does not engage in behaviour that runs other vehicles off the road.
- He is not a show-off. He really impresses by his safe and defensive driving abilities.
- He obeys the rules of the road. Most are there for the safe conduct of all users. “Stop”, to him means Stop!
- He realizes that most speed limiting signs should be obeyed, especially those that reduce speed through built-up areas. He doesn’t have to like to slow down, but he does so anyway for safety’s sake.
- Should he have to drive anywhere throughout the day or night he avoids anything that may impair his judgement, especially alcohol.
- A good motorist makes his passenger(s) feel safe and comfortable. He does not throw them around in the car through sharp and jerky car handling. He gets them to their destination safely.
- He is always attentive, as he knows that with congested roads it only needs the inattention of a split second to come to grief.
- It is the intention of a good motorist never to be the source of someone else’s grief. His reward will be 50 years plus of trouble-free motoring.

In summary, there’s a whole lot that can be learned from the good motorist. Given the high stakes involved, sometimes it’s the difference between living or dying. Some people are simply dying to show how bad they can be.

Death on the Roads? It doesn’t have to end that way!
Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael

Don’t overtake on two-way road systems. Save your life for those who love you!

MOTORING´S SEVEN MORTAL SINS

One: Overtaking on two-lane, two-way traffic streets anywhere in Spain. Also making a left turn across oncoming traffic.
Two: Speeding, i.e. exceeding the speed limit, or using excessive speed for road conditions at the time.
Three: Exhaustion. i.e. Driver Fatigue
Four: Driving while impaired by drink or drugs.
Five: Dangerous and reckless driving without regard for others.
Six: Tailgating and inattention.
Seven: Driving on the wrong side of the road and clockwise around a roundabout.

(THREE & FOUR):

FATIGUE AND DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE


Do you like a good horror story? I do, as long as it is intelligent, plausible, well written and without gratuitous formula shock effects. “The Exorcist”, “Salem’s Lot”, and “The Amityville Horror” are three examples of what I regard as good writing.

We are all living a horror story but I don’t suppose any of us like this one. The plot centres on the fact that when we say goodbye to our family when leaving the house, we really don’t know whether it’s a permanent goodbye or not. Now, I know there are worse places to live than Spain where daily insecurity is concerned. Iraq comes to mind immediately, but Spain is not a war zone. It is supposed to be a civilized country, but yet we are killing one another in droves on our roads, and we don’t seem to be doing enough to stop the carnage.

If ever a statistic tells of an increase in road fatalities, that would be a trend that is going the wrong way. There is a monster about, as evil as anything conjured up in the minds of the master horror writers. This monster is hungry and it needs to be fed. So, who’s to be its next meal? You? Me? One of us it must be. For the monster wants to be fed and it really doe not care who it takes next.

This year approximately 3,000 people will die prematurely on Spain’s roads. The real tragedy is that no-one absolutely has to die. I know, I have said this before and I must continue to say that these are all avoidable events. In spite of the numbers all these deaths are the exception to the rule, although one could be forgiven for believing this to be the norm.




Driver fatigue is a major cause of fatal accidents. “ He fell asleep at the wheel” is such a common cause of what occurred. You might have wondered what that white strip painted on the road is for that makes a loud noise when you drive on it. That’s a rumble strip, and sometime it runs alongside the road or across it, but the purpose is the same: to wake up drivers who are falling asleep, or who are asleep. When we take our place behind the steering wheel we take charge of a guided missile. The responsibilities that go along with that are awesome.

I knew a man once who killed a pregnant lady because he allowed his attention to stray. That raised the question for me: “How does one live with one’s self following such an event?” For many months after the event I would see him out walking, and he would be talking out loud to himself, or he would be crying. Eventually he disappeared off the radar, presumably he ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

A child once ran out in front of my car, stopped and just stood there frozen in fright. I had anticipated that might happen because I could see that he was not being supervised, so I conducted myself accordingly to ensure that the event was not going to happen. That did not stop the nightmares from coming, and the image of that child staring up at me is one that is stamped on my mind, never to be erased. And remember, nothing happened.

So much has been written about not driving after drinking. Everybody in the world knows it is foolhardy to do so, but until the world we live in decides that we are sick and tired of such nonsense and we are not going to participate or tolerate in it anymore, the monster will have as much to devour as it wants.

Want to get started now to starve the monster? Try the following simple things:

- Going out for the evening? The one to drive home stays free of alcohol.
- Don’t want to do that, take along someone as the designated driver.
- Take a taxi there and back. The price of the taxi will be well worth it.
- Moderate your alcohol intake. Think about how long it will take for your body to purge itself of booze before you can safely and legally drive again. Very often, the police conduct sobriety tests between 8am and 10am when people are on their way to work. They may still be intoxicated from the night before.

Death on the Roads? It doesn’t have to end that way!

Don’t overtake on two-way road systems. Save your life for those who love you!

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael

MOTORING´S SEVEN MORTAL SINS

The Speed Camera: Government's Cash Machine

One: Overtaking on two-lane, two-way traffic streets anywhere in Spain. Also making a left turn across oncoming traffic.
Two: Speeding, i.e. exceeding the speed limit, or using excessive speed for road conditions at the time.
Three: Exhaustion. i.e. Driver Fatigue
Four: Driving while impaired by drink or drugs.
Five: Dangerous and reckless driving without regard for others.
Six: Tailgating and inattention.
Seven: Driving on the wrong side of the road and clockwise around a roundabout.


(TWO) : I DO BELIEVE I FEEL THE NEED FOR SPEED!

Motoring’s second mortal sin is almost on a par with number one, in that the words above are usually spoken by someone who is mixing gasoline with testosterone, one of the deadliest formulas known to mankind. Well, as males, we have all been there. We have all known what it is like to be raring to go, Faster! Faster! Faster! It is a time in our lives when we are invincible, unbreakable, immortal, imperishable. We feel that we can go out and conquer the world, or at least shape it in the image that we want it. This is indeed how Mother Nature gets things done. For change to happen requires this type of restlessness and energy in our young people. We older guys are too fat and lazy.

Speed on the racetrack is where it belongs. Let the young ones compete on the famous circuits of the world. Occasionally, I visit the circuit at Cheste in Valencia to watch motorcycle and even Formula-One events. We sit there and we see them race round the track in packs at top speed, weaving in and out. I think most people attend in the hope of witnessing some spectacular pile-ups or wipe-outs, because without those things happening it very quickly becomes as mundane as watching people on their way to work.

I’m always amused to see those races where the regular roads are turned into closed circuits, such as in Monte Carlo. Thousands line the roads to watch the professionals run through stop signs and red lights at top speeds. Of course, I never actually travel to Monte Carlo as I can see the same thing for free in downtown Valencia everyday.

Speed on the normal road system kills. On the racetrack, speeds reach ultra-high limits, but in spite of that and some amazing events where you see a car disintegrate before your eyes, there are very few deaths because of the controlled nature of it all. Our roads, however are in chaos. Spain will recorded in 2005, another sad fact that over 3,000 people lost their lives prematurely in motor “accidents”. The year 2005 was an especially tragic year around the world due to so many catastrophic natural events. Earthquakes, floods, the tsunami of Boxing Day, 2004. As I wrote this, humanitarian relief was on-going to the people of Pakistan where in excess of 30,000 died. Yet, the figure of 3,000 dead on our roads is more disturbing because not one of those deaths were absolutely necessary. Those who are caught in a natural event can do little or nothing to avoid their fate.

As drivers, we are absolutely responsible for how hard we press down the accelerator pedal. No-one else can make that control. Why do we speed?
- We didn’t hear the alarm clock and now we are late for work. We try to make up the time on the road.
- We speed because the car or bike is designed to top 200 km/h. So, we put the pedal to the metal on a busy road to try it out. What are we thinking?
- We are simply impatient people who have to be in front of everybody else.
- The reason that no-one seems to consider is, we speed because we just can’t wait to meet our own death.

In all but one of the above examples there is one thing in common, and it is this: we probably won’t achieve what we want to because, when we are speeding we increase the likelihood that we will have a crash, or in a best case, we will simply be stopped by the police. Consequently, we will be late for work; we will likely lose our license so the car will sit in the garage and the speedometer will read zero; we will have to take public transport and everybody else will get ahead of us; but the good news is that we will stay alive, and for those who love us, that will be very good news indeed.

I’m not such an old guy that I forget how it was when I was young. Yes, I felt the need for speed. At times I had so much energy I felt I was about to leap out of my skin. But I survived that period and I have lived to tell the tale. Every time I hear of some young person killed on the roads I try to think of what the parents must be experiencing. It goes against the laws of nature that a parent should have to bury a child. When that happens the parents die too. To lose one’s only child leaves very little to live for. That is a life sentence full of pain and overwhelming loss. I know people who are in such situations and for them they are the living dead. There can be no worse fate than that!

Death on the roads? It doesn’t have to end like that!
Don’t overtake on two-way roads. Save your life for those who love you!

Copyright (c) 2008 Eugene Carmichael