Are you prepared?

I live in a country with one of the highest death tolls from road accidents in the world. Our roads are filled with carnage daily, and barely get a mention in the news anymore. 

Yesterday, an horrific crash took place at about 8:30 in the morning. An 18-wheel truck was unable to stop, and ploughed into about 50 cars during peak-hour traffic. An accident on this scale is too shocking to ignore. If you want to know more, you can find it here. Warning, the pictures are not for the sensitive. 

Driving back from work yesterday, I heard a lady who was in the accident interviewed on the radio. She was, understandably, very emotional and upset, although she wasn't injured. She said the same things that everyone always says when something like this happens (and it happens with terrifying frequency here in SA). 

Then, she said something I didn't expect. This brave lady, who had agreed share her pain and emotion with the audience of a major radio station, said that the fact that one of the crash victims had a fire extinguisher in his car enabled the bystanders to extinguish a car on fire, which could have been so much worse if they had had to wait for first responders.  She said that she was going to go out and buy fire extinguishers for all the cars in her family. She also said that a lot more could have been done if people had first aid kits in their cars. She urged everyone listening to go out and buy a fire extinguisher, and a first aid kit. I'm going to do this today.

I listened to her words, really listened. She talked about people texting while driving. As I drove in peak hour traffic, travelling at speeds of between 50 and 100 km/h, I counted at least 7 different people texting while driving. Now, I don't care if they are putting their lives at risk. But they are putting my life at risk too. And I can't allow that. I want to implore everyone I know to speak out against texting and driving. It's rapidly becoming the number 1 cause of road deaths. Everywhere. 

Please watch this video. Share it and spread the word.

My fellow South Africans, please drive better. Be more tolerant. Smile at people. And let's make a noise so loud that the companies who are putting faulty trucks on the road are shouted down and run out of business.