Death via car accidents stats in the DR vs car accident death stats in the USA

[cobraboy]

on the bright side - all gringos i know here who drive never EVER encoutered any major trouble and they drive anything from a piece of junk to brand new SUVs.....

I've never really had a problem beyond sideswiping a short concrete pole in the parking lot of Crystal dry cleaners on Bartolome Colon in Santiago.

You just have to be really, really careful out there, a tad paranoid, with your head and eyes on a swivel.

 

[batich]

I've never really had a problem ...

You just have to be ... a tad paranoid ....

THat`s what I am talking `bout m`self.

 

[J D Sauser]

I'm surprise it hasn't been brought up, but the statistics are skewed. In order to analyse and compare the large proportion of DR traffic accident fatalities vis-a-vis other countries, we have to factor in deaths caused by the typically inappropriate handling of accident victims, the terrible care at emergency treatment facilities, not counting the inadequate medical services provided in most public hospitals. I'm sure many accident victim's lives could have, and can be, saved if emergency services were at a par with those, say in New Jersey. My own wife (before I met her), was hit by a speeding bus ("voladora"), en left for dead on the side of the road, covered over with a tarp. Hours later, her sister found her and noticing she was still alive, stopped a pick-up truck, and with the help of the driver she was practically slung on the back of the truck, and driven two hours away to the closest trauma medical facility. How many in similar situations don't make it?

I might ad that I think the reason things like that happen, is that many times an accident here is viewed by the crowd and especially by the relatives of the "victim" as a crime and thus puts the person at legal fault or viewed as the only guilty party in a situation of personal risk. So many prefer to leave the scene of an accident, leaving hurt people for death.
It's a legal problem and one of education too.
When one takes the wheel and turns that ignition, one assumes TWO risks:
1.) to cause an accident, unwillingly, and hurt others and themselves. That's what liability insurance should be for.
2.) thus also to suffer an accident and suffer loss and pain, whilst accepting the limitations of repair.

In some countries this concept is integral part of law and therefor how compensation will be handled. But not here and sadly, it causes people who could have lived to die.

... J-D.