C'mon, join in the chorus folks; "Macho macho man...i wanna be a macho man.."
Mar Del Plata is the place Buenos Aires goes to in January. The country's biggest seaside resort gets an enormous influx of Porteños every January and February that want to forget about big city life for a couple of weeks and kick back and do some serious R&R, Argentine style.
Unfortunately, the typical Argentine macho man's idea of relaxation includes acting like a complete asshole. This report caught my eye yesterday in Argentina's Clarin national daily that tells how police in Mardel carried out a breath test campaign on drivers over the weekend. The result was that so many drivers failed the alcohol test (0.5mg/l) that the police compound quickly overflowed with the 60 confiscated cars and they had to park them on the roads around the lot. These breath tests are part of a brand new campaign tied to a new points system of road infractions, and it's a system that has had the average boludo on the street moaning and whinging about civil liberties.
Argentina is not a serious country, but that's not because of its government; it has the jokers that it has in office because they're all the idiot population deserves. Take a look at this chart that shows just how many people die on the roads in Argentina every year.
Unfortunately, the typical Argentine macho man's idea of relaxation includes acting like a complete asshole. This report caught my eye yesterday in Argentina's Clarin national daily that tells how police in Mardel carried out a breath test campaign on drivers over the weekend. The result was that so many drivers failed the alcohol test (0.5mg/l) that the police compound quickly overflowed with the 60 confiscated cars and they had to park them on the roads around the lot. These breath tests are part of a brand new campaign tied to a new points system of road infractions, and it's a system that has had the average boludo on the street moaning and whinging about civil liberties.
Argentina is not a serious country, but that's not because of its government; it has the jokers that it has in office because they're all the idiot population deserves. Take a look at this chart that shows just how many people die on the roads in Argentina every year.
In 2008, they managed to kill 8,205 people, 40% of whom popped their clogs in the Buenos Aires province. That's over 22 people per day. Or to give you a different perspective here's a comparative chart for the year 2006.
Worldwide, transit accidents is number nine in the list of people killing activities. In Argentina it's number three. It's just a damned pity that it doesn't just kill the moronic macho "I'm a better driver with a drink inside me" criminals who think they're normal. If it did it'd kill two birds with one stone (pardon the pun).
Two final thoughts:
- Gov't studies in Urban Argentina show that women drivers use their seat belts 49% more often than men. Women also break red lights 52% less often than men. The guilty are men, not women.
- Personally speaking, I've seen plenty of LatAm in my time and know that in most parts the driving is reckless (compared to up North, at least). However IMHO Argentinians are the worst of the lot. They all want to be Fangio. Just google the words "picada auto Argentina" and see what I mean. No doubt there will be 8,000 fewer of them next year.
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6 comments:
So, those opening scenes from The Motorcycle Diaries aren't an exaggeration, then? (I'm thinking specifically of the one in which the Ches' bike swerves perilously close to an oncoming bus before mounting a curb and continuing on down a sidewalk, pissing off the lady shoppers.)
On a more serious note, testosterone + alcohol = Teh Bigtime Stoopid. And to think that back in the olden days, they wanted to bar WOMEN from driving?
Great rant, Otto. And on a subject that could use a lot more people ranting about it.
You can't adopt the stifling of my rights argument, because in most cases (at least in the US)the drunk driver doesn't get killed, it is the innocents in the other car. In fact, a surprisingly large number of drunk drivers get little other that a few superficial scrapes.
I talked to a doctor friend who practices emergency medicine. He seems to think that the drunks are so relaxed at the impact that they bend and absorb the forces in ways that the sober folks can't bring themselves to do. It's an interesting theory he has.
Anyway, good article and one of the many reasons I hope this site wins the Weblog award. :)
One of the greatest things about Buenos Aires (besides the food, art, nightlife, women, etc.) is that if all else fails you can just watch the roads for some entertainment.
Here in Montevideo we get our share of Agentinians racing through on their way to Punta del Este. Local traffic is pretty wild, but at a slower pace. The black license plates really race through town!
Uruguay has diffenent kinds of cops. You can race paste the local Policia and they do not care. Only the traffic police care about traffic laws and I see one of those guys about once a month. Definitely different down here.
Apropos relaxed drunks, my dad, who used to work in the mines in Northern Ontario before he married my mom, became an entrepreneur, etc., says the politest driver in the town was the local drunk. You could always tell when he'd tied one on, too...he would be crawling along on the shoulder at about 10 mph. Not speeding down the middle of the highway with the gas pedal stuck--CRAWLING ON THE SHOULDER. He was practically comatose behind the wheel, so it was little wonder.
If only all drunk drivers were like that, there'd be no accidents. Except between them and an impetuous porcupine, maybe. (Those beasts are about as fast on their feet as Frank the drunk was on wheels.)
PS: The absolute scariest drivers that I've seen with mine own eyes, after the one who hit me with his Volvo one fine morning when I was 14, are the Germans on the Autobahn. No speed limits on the highway, and no governors on the cars. Some of them are actually miffed if their big Mercedes or BMW doesn't go faster than 195 klicks, and take that as a sign that it needs a mechanic. I want to smack them when I hear things like that--the speed limit on the 401, the nearest large highway where I live, is 100, and lots of drivers routinely go 120 there, with predictable carnage resulting. The roads aren't engineered for that kind of speed--NONE are, but try telling it to someone whose car can do 300--or who thinks it should.
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