Tragedy in Palermo

[perry]

Last night I came home to a scene of tragedy that happened on Scalabrini Ortiz and Honduras . A Bus driver who diverted from his normal route ran over a young mother and her family at a pedestrian crossing . One of these victims tragically died and the other two are in hospital one in grave condition. This is on pagina uno of clarin today.

This has angered me tremendously as well as our local community who have had enough of the cowboy bus drivers and general drivers who seem to have little respect for pedestrians who use the streets daily.

I find the argentine drivers terrible in the main and very egoistical in their driving with an attitude of beating the other first. There needs to be some serious education done here in regards to the road and its laws as they belong to us all and should not be treated as war zones where we are fearful of travelling by car or walking as pedestrians.

 

[syngirl]

I just saw this on the news this morning, at the time of the report the driver was still detained. The buses are insane here, and I've noticed lately that along the route there seem to be checkpoints where an official from the route comes and marks something down on the drivers paper -- I assume that they are tracking the times between stops. I worry that rather being a study to examine whether they need more buses on particular routes, these checkpoints put even more pressure on the drivers to speed from one stop to the next. Does anyone have any idea what they are all about?

I was in Almagro last week, a man crossed the street and slipped and he almost got hit by a bus that didn't even have any intention of slowing down at the intersection, even though it was a side street and in order to cross the intersection he would have needed to stop to make sure there was no traffic.

I think they need to install at least 4-way stops throughout the city, the whole hesitate-drive through, or not even hesitate, just drive through at full speed attitude is ridiculous and part of the reason I have never really taken to driving here.

 

[Churchill]

Sadly, with the way these colectiveros drive these types of accidents are inevitable. Many of the drivers are put under pressure to finish their run by a certain time. They earn good money and many work extra hours, however, tired and pressurised drivers are a lethal cocktail.

 

[AlexfromLA]

The guy should go to jail for manslaughter. The local State and Municipal government ( hello Macri ? ) should start setting examples as it falls under their jurisdiction. If there is no penalty for vehicular manslaughter, why would drivers care ?

Sadly I've seen these things happen alot. Between the crazed taxi drivers and the overworked careless bus drivers, Argentina has the worlds highest vehicular death rate.

The seat belt and no cell phone campaigns were nice, but more needs to be done since it seems it is the city's public transport that is killing the most people.

 

[gouchobob]

Driving here is my least favorite activity in Argentina for all the reasons that have been mentioned before. Believe it or not it's actually worse outside of B.A. on the highways were speeds are much higher. The only solution I can see would be for the government to start enforcing common sense traffic laws. For a change this would be one area where the government could get involved in and do some good. They could even make it pay for itself from
fine revenue, assuming you could do something about people paying bribes to avoid fines. People even here will generally obey the rules if they are enforced. I've lived in a couple of private barrios that had their own photo radars and fined residents for speeding. It worked. I doubt we will see any serious effort in this regard by the government anytime in the near future.

 

[SaraSara]

Drivers in Argentina are nuts, and it's the law of the jungle out there - the strongest and largest animal wins. If you buy a car, get the largest one you can afford: the bigger the car, the more respect it gets.

Pickups are even better.

 

[French jurist]

Sad, here is a classic from Cronica TV :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwoDgSK7mx8

For those who don't understand spanish, the guy explains that he was driving like a champion and ended up like Schumacher, then repeats that he feels like a champion...

 

[ghost]

Unfortunately this subject has been beaten to death and there appears to be no solution, short of a total culture change. It's about respect. It's about enforcement. And it has something to do with the basic understanding of consequences. Defensive driving is for sissies.
The over-riding mentality is "there are no consequences" and "no authority is legitimate". Thus the end product is monkeys with machine guns.
Drive carefully.

 

[perry]

The reality is that a culture is formed by our actions and how we are taught by our society. Driving faster and overtaking another is not smart or piola when lives are at risk by your actions.
There are many factors at play here why Argentinas road toll is so high and yes a lot of this is cultural unfortunately. It never ceases to amaze me that people will accept this road toll of 10,000 people a year as normal and when a new disease comes out like the so called SWINE FLU that killed a few lives the panic was hysterical .

Lets get out priorities right as a society and ask our politicians for change.

 

[ghost]

The reality is that a culture is formed by our actions and how we are taught by our society. Driving faster and overtaking another is not smart or piola when lives are at risk by your actions.
There are many factors at play here why Argentinas road toll is so high and yes a lot of this is cultural unfortunately. It never ceases to amaze me that people will accept this road toll of 10,000 people a year as normal and when a new disease comes out like the so called SWINE FLU that killed a few lives the panic was hysterical .

Lets get out priorities right as a society and ask our politicians for change.

Pericles
Your heart is in the right place. But unless the society actually believes there is something wrong with with antisocial behavior like driving with total abandon, then I fear there is no hope for change. Even if the gov. passes new laws [which aren't required] who will do the educational aspect? And who will enforce existing laws?
Argentina is/has a society which has only recently embraced the automibile culture and it has done so with a very classist attitude. ie: car equals power. bigger equals right and those who walk are lesser beings to be disregarded because the must be too poor to afford power. Maids walk.