Here's the thing...Porsches, Audi's, BMW's, and other high-end sports cars can handle the speed. They have been driving up and down these highways in-between La Romana and Punta Cana and SD and Punta Cana every single day at high speeds (in certain spots...not the entire way) for as long as i can remember.
Of course this has and will happen. Does not make it right.
The new highways in several places (not all places) are excellent, new, and in fantastic shape. The high-end sports cars can easily handle it without a problem. They seldom have issues.
True, it is the driver's that cause and have issues, not the cars.
You see many, many more accidents--in particular on the north coast--as a result of tire blow-out from trucks and cars (driving on very poor & worn out tires) where they careen into oncoming traffic as a result of a tire blow-out.
This happens often. Unfortunately, when people do not survive the accident, there is no way to know what caused one car to careen into oncoming traffic? And so, it's not possible sometimes to know exactly what caused the accident, and whether or not it was a tire blow-out?
I'm not saying this is always the case...but it happens often.
People who own $120,000 high-end sports cars can afford new tires and the upkeep of their cars. The gua-guas, Public cars, dump trucks, and many of the everyday Dominican cars are driving around on bald tires, uneven tires, unmatching tires, and tires that have been plugged many, many times, etc.
Proper car inspections and fines for tires with no tread might help this problem.
In spots where there is a long stretches of highway with no side roads leading onto the main highway, there is little chance for anything to go wrong, and very seldom do things go wrong.
That has zero relevance on speeding being illegal.
Of course, speed kills, but i would say most of the Dominican catastrophic accidents are a result of poor car maintenance--especially worn out tires, bad roads, pot holes, debris that has fallen off trucks, etc.
I have never had a car or motorcycle accident in the DR.
If you drive as you say you do, you have been incredibly lucky and so have the people in the areas where you "wrecklessly" (pun intended) drove.
A few years back, i was coming back from Las Galeras with three Norwegian police officers (who met William Webster that same day), a large dog ran out onto highway-5 in front of me near Cabrera. There was a slight curve coming up and i ran over the dog. All three girls screamed and asked why i didn't swerve to try and avoid it. I explained:
1.) By swerving upon an upcoming curve (which i could not see around the curve), i could have potentially put us in a position of a head-on collision if a car was coming in the opposite direction and might have been cutting the curve--as many often do here.
2.) By slamming on my brakes, i could have locked up the brakes, causing us to either slide off the road, or slide into oncoming traffic coming around the curve.
3.) Or, I could continue forward, lightly braking--but not excessively--and hope that the dog was quick enough to move to the side of the road.
The dog was either eating or smelling something in the middle of the road, and hence, did not get out of the way fast enough.
I had no choice but to hit it. Not a good feeling. But i also was not going to risk our lives by trying to take evasive maneuvers on a curve, and at night.
You never know if this Porsche was trying to avoid hitting something and took excessive maneuvers which made him lose control.
