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Be afraid, be very afraid
On his travels to almost 100 countries, Barry Goldsmith, a creator of tours for General Tours, says he has worried about risks like terrorism, crime and infectious disease. But one trumps all the others.
“It’s traffic accidents,” Mr. Goldsmith said.
Road accidents are “the largest cause of nonnatural death among U.S. citizens overseas,” said Betsy L. Anderson, a senior consular official at the State Department.
Here is the full story. Some of the lessons are simple: insist on a vehicle with seat belts, sit in the back whenever possible, try to avoid driving or being driven at night, and don't take too many car trips. Avoid the "Andean bus plunge."
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 22, 2007 at 05:57 AM in Travels | Permalink
Comments
I am living in Yemen right now and despite my friends and family's worries, my biggest worry is being involved in a traffic accident. I almost got hit twice today walking to the Chinese embassy. Despite the intriguing model of "emergent" traffic, I am not a big fan. In this case, give me some rules and some enforcement so I can stop fearing for my life! I blog about other, related issues in countries like this as well..
Isaac
Posted by: Isaac Crawford at Apr 22, 2007 6:57:47 AM
So true! Travelling through Kashmir when an uprising there was in the news, I remember the closest I came to dying was every time I rode the bus somewhere.
Posted by: Adair at Apr 22, 2007 8:18:33 AM
This is dead on; I lived in Kuwait for 8 years and this is by far the most concerning thing; terrorism, murder, theft are truly minimal worries, in fact the last one is far more of a threat here in the states.
Death by automobile? Let's just say I have a heavenly protector, but I've lost friends that way, and some morbid acquaintances of mine used to hang out by a junction to "watch accidents".
I came back to the country after a couple years abroad, and on the way home from the airport I saw someone, on the other side of the highway, stop and reverse a hundred metres or so to catch a turn he missed.
Posted by: Jordan Peacock at Apr 22, 2007 9:29:06 AM
One can get in trouble even if one is not driving or walking.
Thus a few years ago a British man who was living there was
jailed in Saudi Arabia because a Saudi citizen had crashed
into the man's legally parked car, with Saudi citizen's wife
dying. It was argued that it would not have happened if the
British man had not been there.
I had an experience in Moscow where I was sitting in the front
seat of a wildly driven taxi in which the driver refused to let
me put on my seat belt because it would show that I did not trust
his driving and would be insulting. At least we did not have an
accident...
Probably the scariest drive I had was a taxi ride to the airport
in Mumbai (Bombay) at night. There was a much more prominent, and
somewhat older, economist with me in the cab also. He nearly had
a heart attack. Of course there have recently been news stories
about Mumbai especially, closing on Mexico City to become second
largest metropolis in the world, which has probably the highest
rate of deaths among commuters, especially people falling off buses
or getting their heads chopped off from sticking them out windows.
The numbers are truly horrific.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Apr 22, 2007 9:48:12 AM
Yes, Mumbai traffic is scary, but I've only seen a few aaccidents. Definitely keep hands and heads within the vehicle!
Posted by: Russ Nelson at Apr 22, 2007 10:20:29 AM
In my time in Cairo, during which I visited many parts of the city and its environs, I encountered only one traffic light. It's not uncommon for people running like mad to cross five-lane (if you can call them lanes) streets to get clipped by cars. Once, a cab I was in tagged an older woman - the side-view mirror whacked her arm. He just kept on going despite my pleas.
India has the absolute worst highway system of any country in which I've spent time. If you think Mumbai itself is bad, try traveling between cities by car. For some reason which was never explained to me, at night, headlights are not used unless there is an opportunity to pass someone. Even then, they prefer frequent horn use to lights.
These intercity roads have two-way traffic on a stretch of asphalt the width of which equals ~1.5 US highway lanes. The roads are in terrible disrepair and are packed with teetering, overloaded trucks.
Posted by: fustercluck at Apr 22, 2007 1:01:54 PM
Traffic crashes are the #1 cause of death for Americans through about age 35. This is the case of the obvious waiting to be pointed out. Thanks for pointing it out!!!
I was just in Greece and I bet the risk of getting killed there is a good 10x higher than here.
Posted by: david at Apr 22, 2007 1:33:52 PM
Cairo is bad and rural India is also bad.
I did want to clarify. The problem with that drive in Mumbai
was not that my fellow passenger was having a heart attack,
it was that he was so frightened I was afraid he would. He
was screaming at the cabbie, who of course just kept on doing
his terrifying maneuvers. The whole thing actually reduced my
own personal fear because I got caught up in trying to calm
down my fellow passenger, to get him to stop screaming at the
cabbie, which made me nervous that his screaming would cause the
cabbie to mess up, etc.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Apr 22, 2007 2:06:31 PM
Started by a teacher of mine, Association for Safe International Road Travel
www.asirt.org
Posted by: Daniel Horowitz at Apr 22, 2007 9:29:02 PM
Something I don't understand from the article:
"He was once stopped by a policeman on a French highway for going too slowly, a potentially dangerous mistake. He said he was thinking in miles, not kilometers."
That doesn't make sense - road signs would give speed in km. If he sees "60 km/h" and interprets that as "I can drive 60 (mph)," he'd be driving too fast. What am I missing?
Posted by: Nathan Richardson at Apr 22, 2007 11:33:11 PM
Nathan,
But the opposite is true if he decides to drive at some speed, say, 55mph, and then drives at a speed such that his speedometer reads 55.
Posted by: iamspam at Apr 23, 2007 12:09:17 AM
This strikes me as absurdly obvious. Isn't road traffic accident the biggest non-natural killer of Americans in America too? Not to mention that people who are sick or have any kind of illness/condition requiring treatment are less likely/unable to travel (and thus die) overseas and .. voila.
Posted by: plainasthenoseonmyface at Apr 23, 2007 10:04:32 AM
"I came back to the country after a couple years abroad, and on the way home from the airport I saw someone, on the other side of the highway, stop and reverse a hundred metres or so to catch a turn he missed."
Yes! One of the guys that almost hit me had already passed me. I was looking the other way when I noticed, just in time BTW, with my peripheral vision that he was backing his way back through the intersection! One other thing that I have noticed, the horn is used so much that it almost ceases to have any meaning. In the US, if someone honks their horn, everyone looks to see what is going on. Here, nobody, including me, notices or cares...
Isaac
Posted by: Isaac Crawford at Apr 23, 2007 10:06:48 AM
There is a site featuring stories of Third World bus plunges. And a Flickr photo essay on some of Kuwait's particularly spectacular car crashes.
Posted by: Peter at Apr 23, 2007 10:10:00 AM
大家好，我是臺灣人，從臺灣一個人搬家來到美國，環境很陌生，感覺很孤單。以前在臺灣幾家知名的徵信社工作過，我是一個優秀的徵信工作者，希望早點找到適合自己的工作。希望通過貴站，認識更多的朋友。
Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 2:39:07 AM
