Dangerous Roads

Dangerous Roads

It's never good to boast or brag about ones achievements. Nonetheless I couldn't resist a little bit of boastfulness recently. It came about like this: on returning from our trip to Georgia I was looking for details of one of the stages we had cycled. Over the 2620m Zagari pass. I found all the information I needed on a site for 4wd enthusiasts and this comment: “ Any driver attempting this route should have supreme confidence in their vehicle and their driving skills”. By chance this same mountain track was featured in a TV programme 'The Worlds Most Dangerous Roads' a few days later. This was my chance to impress my car orientated family, friends and acquaintances living in England. Most of them, I fear, would prefer to have bicycles banned from the roads altogether. They find it more an eccentricity than an achievement or adventure that I spend my summers cycling up and down mountains in obscure countries. 

Well it worked...this time they were impressed.

Now, if you promise not to tell, here's the truth: on a mountain bike this road wasn't particularly frightening.
It was certainly tough going and physically demanding but not specially difficult or dangerous. For a bike the roads were wide enough, we didn't have to cycle along the very edge of the ravines and we could easily avoid fallen rocks. Without taking any risks I was much faster going downhill, and sometimes on the flat sections, than the motorized vehicles.

I tend to think that our vacations are a little more adventurous than most peoples but a lot less adventurous than others. Even then any reputation we may have for being adventurous travellers is largely based on the public perception of the places we visit.

Slovenia, a small,peaceful country a lot like Austria but with fewer tourists and nowhere near as many geraniums, is (or was) associated with Croatia, Kosova, Serbia, Bosnia and all the violence and atrocities that went with the break up of Yugoslavia. Most people have not even heard of Kyrgyzstan but it does have -stan at the end of its name so it must be a scary place! Romania, many people think, is full of thieves, bandits, pick-pockets and dodgy builders. Georgia, is associated with Russian aggression and organised crime syndicates. Despite these preconceptions, except for the odd attack by stray- dogs and being given the evil-eye by a gypsy women, we have not felt threatened or unsafe in any of these places.

Taking the number of murders per 100,000 inhabitants, per year, as a rough indication of the level of violence: Central Asia & Eastern Europe, the regions we have mostly visited  the last few years, score just 5.8 and 5.9 respectively which is certainly a little more than Western Europe (0.9) but far less than Southern Africa (31), Central America (26.5) and South America (22.6). In Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, the murder rate is 5.0: which is less than New York (5.6) and not much more than Amsterdam at 4.4. Inhabitants of Detroit or New Orleans are at least four times more likely to get murdered if they stay at home than if they visit Kyrgyzstan.

So the roads we travel and the countries we visit are not as dangerous as they at first appear. Perhaps we are not so adventurous after all! Ah well – one man's adventure is another man's walk in the park and vice versa and we do have our exciting and scary moments. This year they mostly involved travelling by bus, taxi, car or bicycle in Tbilisi. Just crossing the road was at times good for a serious adrenaline rush. The fact is, worldwide, assuming you avoid war zones, there is far more chance that you will be involved in a road accident than an act of violence. Sticking with Georgia for the moment, the number of fatal traffic accidents per 100,000 inhabitants, is 15.7, compared with the national murder rate of 4.3. In Slovenia there are 6.6 road fatalities compared to 0.7 murders. Greece 9.1 compared to 1.7, in the UK you are three times more likely to die in an accident than as a result of a violent crime.

 

Official travel advice for foreign travel will stress that you must beware of pickpockets when using local public transport but they don't usually state what the risks are of getting knocked down by a bus!
There are well known, common sense steps and precautions one should take when travelling: stay out of certain neighbourhoods, avoid demonstrations and don't wear your diamonds when visiting street markets for example. From experience I would add, especially after dark, watch out for unmarked excavations and missing manhole covers...
...but above all, travelling anywhere and everywhere : be very, very careful crossing roads.