Individual tragedy and crushing statistics
The most absurd way to die is in a car accident. These words attributed to the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, almost never stop being relevant. It is difficult to talk about individual tragedies and the social scandal of traffic accidents, especially those caused by distracted and aggressive driving, in a cooler way. Reactions cannot be anything other than a mix of various emotions, anger, fear, resentment and inevitable sadness. The World Health Organization, which, truth be told, lost a good part of its positive reputation after the Covid crisis, brings devastating statistics related to traffic deaths. Annually, about 1.300.000 people lose their lives in traffic accidents. When it comes to injuries due to traffic accidents, the statistics are relatively imprecise due to the fact that the accidents themselves are not documented and range from 20 to 50 million, but even that approximate number is indicative, especially since it is clear that a large number are not negligible injuries such as superficial scratches, but about those that lead to a higher or lower degree of disability.
The impression is that the most innocent always get killed in traffic accidents. These are children of preschool age, school children, high school students, students and young people on the threshold of a serious life. Someone's daughter or son, aunt or girlfriend, becomes a tragic part of the catastrophic statistics that say that people aged 5 to 29 are exposed to the greatest risk in traffic. Life really does seem deeply unfair sometimes to people who don't deserve it. Traffic accidents happen almost in a fraction of a second, enough for a young life to become part of a devastating and painful statistic.
Causes and effects
Inappropriate speed is one of the main causes of traffic accidents. A minimal increase in speed of 1%, which the average driver cannot even perceive, increases the risk of a fatal accident by 4%, and a more serious one by 3%. To many of us, hardened in relativizing traffic rules and basic legality of driving, these numbers mean absolutely nothing. Part of our traffic (non)culture has become the relativization of everything. If it says 50 km/h, read that we can go up to 70 km/h - both the radar and the police tolerate that. It's the same with alcohol, those unfortunate parts that cause many fatal accidents, and which are often looked upon with benevolence - what, after all, is one glass more or less for us hardened drivers? The solid line is not a wall, as driving instructors used to scare us, so we can pretend it doesn't exist. Tunnels are inconvenient, but if visibility is good, nothing prevents us from turning on the left turn signal and engaging in overtaking. Children should not be put in adequate seats - that was invented by the West and some power centers to encourage us to spend. Wearing a seat belt reduces the driving experience - that's how the majority of free but safe drivers, as they like to call themselves, reason. Traffic lights should be respected, but maybe not always. Seconds separate yellow from red or green, so why stick to it like a drunkard? Parking on sidewalks and similar places, blocking traffic by stopping illegally, taking the right of way and driving aggressively are also a constitutive part of our traffic habits. Pedestrian crossings are a separate story. For a good part of the drivers, pedestrian crossings are something irritating. Whether it's the fear of stopping and restarting the vehicle - that basic act of driving, or the feeling of superiority on the road - is irrelevant. What is important is that we blow the horn to pregnant women, mothers with children, people in wheelchairs, people with a leg in a cast, etc. The traffic habits that we have listed, which do not serve us well, moreover, which are a completely unacceptable form of driving culture, show our tendencies to circumvent the rules, which periodically lead to a fatal outcome and ruined lives.
Posthumous care
Our societies are characterized by belated intelligence, which is shown to be completely hypocritical when fatal accidents occur. The hypocrisy is reflected in the fact that many of the traffic policies - let's call them that - remain in the domain of mental nouns. They are just ideas, stories without any realisation. We believe that the regret for the victims from public actors is sincere - these are situations that shake everyone, but posthumous regret is not enough if the politicians previously ignore all the pressing problems from the traffic spectrum. Starting with the potholes in the road, which are a clear sign of the erosion of the traffic infrastructure, and are filled with some dark substance, possibly carcinogenic, they are not leveled, and avoiding them is a risk, both for drivers and pedestrians. Road lighting, which has always been one of the main prerequisites for safety, is disastrous, traffic lights are often unnoticeable and non-functional. Signaling is banal in many aspects and from the perspective of the profession, a high risk for all road users. Repressive measures against aggressors of one type or another are not enough, sometimes the impression remains that the repressive apparatus itself relativizes many violations. Advanced technological solutions exist only as a possible proposal of some international organizations or consultants. In some parallel universe, work to reduce traffic risk would save some lives from an absurd and tragic fate. Instead of a tragic death, a child, a student or a young doctor would start their day tomorrow in a typical way. It is deeply disturbing that in our real world it is different.
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