Driving In Cuba
Bolivia’s Old Yungus Road is widely reported as the world’s most lethal. The spectacular Andean route between Coroico and La Paz has earned a grisly cache amongst adventure travelers wanting to earn “I cycled the Death Road” t-shirts.
The Yungus is just one of six Latin American roads that make the Association for Safe International Road Travel’s list of the twenty most dangerous roads in the world. Interstate 116 in Brazil, the Panamerican highway in Costa Rica, the Cotopaxi Volcan road in Ecuador, Highway 1 in Mexico and Kuelap-Celendin-Cajamarca road in Peru are the others.
Latin America’s death toll from road accidents of 26.1 per 100,000 population is the highest in the world according to the 2004 World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. Although fear of violence is often highest on the list of security worries of visitors to Latin America, USA Today reports road traffic accidents as the most probable cause of death for healthy American travelers.
The same USA Today report indicates that motorists are more vulnerable when driving abroad due to a combination of lack of familiarity with local roads and driving conditions and the effects of jet lag. However, the road safety conditions in Latin America, in common with other developing world regions, add significantly to driving risks.
Latin America’s share of poorly maintained and inadequately signed roads, are made more dangerous by an often alarming driving culture. Indicating with lights when making turns appears to be thought of in some countries as a superfluous eccentricity. Widespread poverty results in the use of vehicles that are over-crowded, may lack mirrors and have poor quality windshields, breaks and shocks.
In Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo, motorists may ignore road signals for fear that stopping at lights may invite car-jackings. In Guatemala’s highlands, Chicken Buses hurtle down winding roads like tanks strapped to skateboards - unstoppable forces in search of their immovable object. Passengers traveling in tourist shuttles through Honduras regularly hold their breath as their drivers weave terrifying crochet patterns between oncoming juggernauts.
Sketchy enforcement of road safety regulations does not help. When a Guatemalateca friend of mine recently dented her car, I asked her why she accepted her father’s reaction of banning her from using her car. “You’ve got a license - so he knows you can drive” - “Yes, but I never sat a test - dad just bought me the license.”
Unfortunately, things may get worse before they get better. A joint report by the World Health Organization and the World Bank estimates that by 2020, there will be an 80% increase road deaths in low- and middle-income countries (where 85% of global road deaths already occur). During the same period a 30% decline in road deaths in high-income countries is predicted.
However, such grim predictions are not inevitable and real improvements are possible. Over the last 15 years Chile’s road safety program has achieved reductions in fatalities of about 20%. Lessons from Chile were highlighted at the first Latin American and Caribbean Road Safety Forum two years ago. It is to be sincerely hoped that the forum, now claiming representatives from 24 countries can succeed in making exploring this wonderful continent by road a safer experience for all.
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