- Michael M.: Too much going on. Life in flux, etc..
- Sunshine: Wow, I was soooo happy to see a new post in my rss reader. I was hopping this is already the comeback! :(...
- gandalf: Did you only get caffeine through Dr.p or did you drink coffee as well? I’m interested, since...
- neeka: nine kilos… wow… :) happy holidays to you, michael, and to all your loved ones! veronica
- m: It was a bargain. No strings attached.
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
• AlienMelon
• Burger.si
• Heck
• Izklop
• si.blogs
• Sloblogi
• Blogorola
• Natalija Verboten
Somewhere out there is a tractor with my name on it. [source]
Living in Styria is really great, as long as you come to terms with the fact that you’re going to die in a violent car crash one day. This page of the Norwegian Traffic Authority (thx Gandalf!) used to have a list of accidents per capita in the EU, and Slovenia was close to the top. Of course, lately the trend has been getting worse. Despite efforts to crack down hard on speeding and drunk driving, traffic deaths are up this year. This past summer, seven people died in one horrific accident outside Ljubljana.
Just to put that in perspective: that’s more deaths than the recent floods, which prompted a day of mourning here. Seven people dying in Slovenia is like 287 people dying in Germany, or more than a thousand people dying in the United States. In other words, that one accident on the Ljubljana ring took roughly the same number of lives per capita as the Eschede Disaster in Germany or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
The Ljubljana accident aside (it was, after all, caused by a Romanian driver) it is Styria that houses some of the country’s most maniacal drivers. And that brings us to today’s main link, a video of people navigating the highways of Styria — including such chill-inducing moves as “going down the highway in reverse” and the ever-popular “turning around in a one-way tunnel.”
You can watch this agonizing video (it’s like watching a preview of my own death) here.
(Thanks Miha!)
Comments
Comments for this post are closed.
I guess it’s a sad bit of irony that this was your post for today. My cousin’s spouse is now a part of those statistics. He died last Wed in a motorcycle accident just outside of LJ..the real sad thing is he left 2 young kids behind.
I feel so bad for them…I wish I could be over there right now, to help out with anything they might need.
In this context mentionable: Der Pisa-Test für Autofahrer
“Auf dem letzten Rang im internationalen Vergleich landeten die Slowenen.” “Auffällig ist, dass sich auch jeweils über 90 Prozent der slowenischen Lenker – Schlusslichter der Umfrage – als gute oder sogar sehr gute Autofahrer einschätzen.”
Michael N: My condolences. A friend of a friend also recently got seriously damaged in a motorcycle accident. Motorcycles, in particular, strike me as particularly scary to drive here.
Robert: The Pisa test got a mention here back in 2005. I had forgotten, though. (Or did I suppress it?) Thanks for the grim reminder.
@Michael N.: So sorry to hear about that!
And Michael M. is of course right. You’ve got more chances of being killed in a car accident than dying of… I don’t know… anything else in this country. Bikers are among the most endangered “species”, because drivers don’t pay attention to them. Even driving schools make only a passing mention of the fact that there are not only cars in the traffic.
And the worst part is that no matter how good a driver/biker you might be, there will always be a moron driving without headlights, making a U-turn in traffic or going in reverse on a highway.
Hm, let’s just say I don’t believe in self-fulfilling prophecies and tractors
No one can change the mentality of a whole nation, no matter how small it is. And it would be the only way to survive, for many many people out there, on the road.
@pengovsky: I’m currently working on getting my drivers license and while I’m not sure about other driving schools, my instructor keeps going on and on about bikers and motorcyclists and how I need to look out for them. In fact, even on the classes before I started driving, we were told constantly that it’s harder for motorcyclists to stop abruptly, so we, the drivers in cars, should make sure not to cut them off at the road.
I agree with Alcessa, it’s the whole driving culture here that’s messed up. It’s the lack of respect for everyone else on the road, thinking no one is allowed to be faster than you are, no one is allowed to get on the road in front of you, etc. And it also has at least in my mind something to do with the sad state our roads are in. Many deaths that happened on the main road around Radovljica this summer could be avoided if the new highway was build as quick as it is in some other countries (look at how fast the highway in Croatia was done). I mean, usually, it would take us 45 minutes to get from Ljubljana to Radovljica, this summer, we were lucky if we made it in an hour and a half, not to mention the branch from the main road to Radovljica, that’s been non-existent for months now. And that is just one example.
Funny thing though is, that when Slovenian drivers drive outside of Slovenia, they are perfectly capable of following the rules and common sense. Which opens a whole new debate on how our police keeps giving tickets to drivers that drive 60km/h where they should drive 50, while some jerks are taking life and death in their own hands on our roads.
I know it’s a long post, but one more thing. I know some people that came to Ljubljana from smaller “towns” in the country. And they have no clue how to drive in the city, so maybe the smaller towns driving schools could take them to some city every now and then. Not to mention what all the get away with on the final driving exam…
I passed my first driving exam in 1990… We didn’t have any highways or any other “serious” roads in and around Murska Sobota, in fact, I think we may have had the only traffic lights in the area, in the centre. How many more have passed their driving tests before and after me, before things got a bit more modern as to the infrastructure and drivers were required to really learn how to drive in a modern society? There is no law telling you you have to re-sit your lessons if you think you don’t know how to drive in certain circumstances… I learned while striving to obtain my second driving licence, but I guess for many drivers it is just a question of trial and error.
Not to mention the fact that one becomes an object of permanent ridicule if striving to drive correctly… and so on.
Anja: Amen to that. There are lots of problem roads that just seem to be ignored. There’s a terrifying intersection near where I work, which is the scene of near-constant accidents. (Just last month a bicyclist was run over there and killed) It’s also put at least two of my colleagues in the hospital. But there seems to be no effort to fix it, even though the solution would be quite easy and inexpensive. (It would involve trimming some bushes and maybe a stop sign. That’s it.)
I can think of plenty of similar places, like an exposed railroad crossing that has killed numerous people already. I think every person in Slovenia can list the dangerous places in their city or town. And I think there are a lot of them.
Also, and this is anecdotal but, nearly every time I see someone do something really death defying or stupid, the person almost always has an SG license plate. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re from out-of-town, but still: Christ almighty.
Good luck with your license, though, Anja and I wish you even more luck once you start hitting the streets.
Alcessa: Now I feel almost compelled to fulfill my prophecy. I don’t want to come off looking foolish. I might end up ramming a tractor just to save my honor. Jokes aside, I really feel like it’s only a matter of time. I’ve had too many near-misses. Eventually something’s gotta give.
Anja: Now, now. I got my driver’s license in one of those village driving schools a couple of years ago, and apart from the first couple of hours intended fot getting used to the car (no, that’s the break! the clutch is next to it!), all the driving I did was in the nearest city - there was a 20 minutes drive there, so in a two hour block I got an effective one hour or so of actual driving. Don’t think that people living outside the big cities get off easier. If nothing else, all the exam centers are located in bigger towns, so there’s no way to pass the exam without at least some driving through a bigger town.
How used to city driving one is *after* getting the license, now that’s a different matter…
Michael, I believe you do. Estimate the danger correctly, that is. In my experience, people in Slovenia tend to talk and think about a rather abstract “destiny” as the main cause of someone’s death or injuries in an accident (you know, I am always talkig rural Slovenia if I say sth about my experiences)… It’s quite creepy to listen to that.
Thank you Michael.
Conrnelius: Maybe it has a lot to do with driving schools then. I work with a girl that has a driving license but doesn’t feel fit enough to drive in Ljubljana. And she is smart enough to have decided it is better for her to get herself some driving lessons here. She also said her final test was driving through her town, without parking or anything. I know different people cope differently, but I know for myself when I drive in some residential parts of Ljubljana, that I don’t know very well, with cars parked everywhere, crossings everywhere, and people buzzing around, it can be overwhelming sometimes.
Also, I’m not sure how some people get their license in the first place, because I think that after 10 hours on the road, I was driving better than them.
And you’d think the point of learning all those rules and having to take the exam twice, would make some think that after they get their license, it wouldn’t hurt following the rules.
thanks for credit! (moka gallery) i am the admin for gallery !
Sounds like it’s time to send a freighter over to Cuba, buy up a boat-load of those old 1950-1960 American cars that are still miraculously running and bring ‘em back to Slovenia. Nothing like 2 tons of good old American steel to encase oneself in when you’ve got idiots driving backwards on high-speed highways.
That, or make it a law that all Slovenian registered automobiles have speed inhibitors installed. And foreginers coming into/driving through Slovenia? Well, make them rent Slovenian cars with speed inhibitors. And if so many accidents are drinking-related, why not go for the standard feature on all cars to have the ignition/alcohol test hook-up installed?
In related news, on the way home from work today I saw one accident (a car had collided with a large truck) and one guy going backwards down a busy street. (Serbian plates)
I really think the key to survival is not to drive safely. Anyone who goes into, say, a roundabout the correct way is asking for trouble. Anja and other new drivers shouldn’t be learning how to drive but how to survive — like practicing how to rapidly get out of the way when someone brakes in front of you, or how to fight your way into traffic.
Darko: This country would be lucky to have you as a transportation minister, although I think you’d be violently overthrown within 24 hours. Still, it’d be a pretty safe 24 hours.
And byrev: thank you for providing freely usable images. It’s something the internets could use a lot more of…
Krass!
Out here in the west, bad driving often comes with a Sežana plate.. And thanks for the mention.
Was just about to send this when I remembered that my girlfriend once, while waiting to enter a roundabout, got told off by the young driver in the car behind her for not using blinkers..
with pleasure “Michael” ! I have many picture/photo for free (by me) but so litle time…
!
———–
Have a safe life … or drive
Ok, I’m a little late with my 0.02€, but still.
There is one problem with the statistics. Transit traffic on the MS-MB road has gone up 400% in the past 3 years, and it’s still just a regular road traversing villages with 30 mph speed limits. How many accidents happen on a highway? Probably less than 10% (but when they happen their consequences are typically far more severe). But to concur with Anja … it’s time we finally construct these highway (Noah was faster with his arch).
It takes me 1h20m to get from MS to MB (38 miles, 60km) and another hour to get to Ljubljana. :/
D.
I’m late too with a comment, condolences to Micheal N. that’s a hell of a way to go.
You think it’s bad in Ljubljana, you should see Sarajevo! ooooooj! The taxi drivers here are very good, so are the bus drivers and so is my S.O. but there are maniacs all over the place and near constant repairs to this major thoroughfare or that little side street, and then there’s CRAZY MAD motorcyclists weaving in and out of traffic like maniacs, and steep roller coaster like streets, and people in huge S.U.V.s parked all over the damn place.