You could be a kind, warm-hearted, soccer Mom ferrying your little ones to their numerous extramural activities or a priest, pious and spiritually fulfilled transporting a group of grannies to a church tea. Are you a senior citizen, perpetually loyal to your 1963 Beetle, destined for a scrap heap somewhere, were it not for your nostalgia, happy to pop along on a national highway at 60 kms/hour (in the 'fast lane.)? You could be a surfer, as laid back as 10 Sunday mornings, languidly inching your way to your favourite surf spot. Our roads are a perfect cross-section of our society. Diverse but dangerous, and more often than not, death hot spots. No matter your personality, many can't avoid transmogrifying
There are always pigs lurking on our roads. No not literally (unless you find yourself traveling through the far reaches of the Eastern Cape, where roads accommodate both vehicles and livestock.) You needn't look to hard to see the pigs on the roads. Just take a look in your rear view mirror.
We all change into pigs the minute we get onto a road. Of course, you'll disagree. "I'm a good driver," is a national mantra. It can't possibly be your fault when you change lanes without indicating and roar off, exceeding the speed limit, your breath noxious with the smell of booze.
You could be a regular Joe Nobody just wanting to make your way from A to Z with the help of your vehicle. But no matter your persona, put a steering wheel in front of you and the brain does something (usually it doesn't involving thinking.) An American Psychological Association study into road rage shows even the most placid of people can be transformed into monsters behind the wheel. As you drive you may feel a niggling transformation taking hold. Watch
your knuckles. Do they turn white? Check your eyes, do they glaze
over, turning red with looming rage? Road rage is almost unavoidable, especially in a country where violence is our 12th official language. Compounding this is a distinct lack of personal responsibility. We can't seem to accept that once we earn the right (yes, it is a right) to drive we also have to take responsibility for our actions. It's not just a necessity, its a survival tool, a means of possibly avoiding those tragedies which sadly become diluted into nothing more but road death statistics. But even the most conscientious motorists are not immune to the pig behaviour we see being flaunted from within vehicles.
Every festive season I bend my brain trying to understand why so many people die on the roads during this period. Cutting through the hypothesizing, the pontificating, the examining, I ca' only draw the conclusion that it's because we are all - in one way or another - bad drivers and even worse vehicle-owners. These machines, as amazing as they are, are basically weapons of mass destruction. Yet we use them and behave around them as if they are candy floss. There's no real appreciation of just how dangerous a motor vehicle can be. And in the hands of a road hog, well, it's only a matter of time before it's reduce to a heap of twisted metals, often entwined with humans (or what's left of them.)
