Gauteng’s traffic explained.
If you are like me, a person not from Gauteng, you may have wondered why you always hear about these ‘accidents’ in the morning during the traffic report. Why are there so many in Gauteng, is it just purely mathematical (more cars?) or is it some other phenomenon?
Well, I have recently had the (un)fortunate experience of travelling to Pretoria thanks to my loving company (shameless punt), and I think I have figured out the problem. There are so many accidents in Gauteng, because the people in Gauteng, drive like complete idiots. I have no doubt, driving ability wise, they are probably on average better than most other cities drivers, but when it comes to common sense, they must be the lowest.
While driving back to the airport from Pretoria, I was simply horrified to see how these loons drive. Zigging and zagging through the traffic at high speeds in their small sports cars until reaching a ‘go slow’ and then simply going down the emergency lane/yellow line. The question was, why was there a go slow? Because some idiot, in his sports car, had an accident. Now, in my opinion, from what I have seen, this must be a daily occurrence on the highways in Gauteng causing a serious head ache for motorists.
Being a programmer, let me try and approach this logically, and explain it to the loons out there who insist this is the best way to drive. If you drive fast and badly, ultimately, you will be in an accident and cause a huge delay for everyone else (law of averages), and while it may be some other loons turn today, yours will come. Now, if you all (loons) decide to drive with some relative sense (no emergency lane, minimal zigging and zagging), you will probably decrease your odds of an accident quite significantly, and if you all play along, there will generally be less accidents. Hence on average, there will be less delays, and everyone will be happier!
If you are from Gauteng and own a Z3/Z4/SLK/Any other equally compensating for something type vehicle, ask yourself, is it really necessary to endanger yourself and everyone else, to save those few minutes?
I’m guessing the answer is probably yes, but at least I tried.
