There are two kinds of road rage. The kind that involves stupid people getting angry and using their cars as weapons. And the kind that arises when decent people are killed for nothing. In the US, when mothers became angry about their kids dying in DUI car accidents, they started up something called Mothers Against Drunken Drivers. MADD.
That’s about what I feel about the latest deaths by driving here in Ukraine. Oh no, don’t get me wrong. Drinking generally is not the problem since there’s a zero-tolerance rule in place among highway and street police. I feel Mad About Dumb and Dangerous Driving.
Let me just read you the list of prominent people I know of, who have died in highway fatalities since we started publishing in February 1994:
July 8, 1994, George Yurchyshyn, 54, US citizen, director of the Boston-based Ukraine Fund in Kyiv and his two Ukrainian assistants, age 34, and 33: DOA
Nov. 13, 1997, Roman Lischynski, 57, Canadian director of the NATO IDC in Kyiv, and his driver: DOA
December, 1997, George Kuzmycz, US official dealing with nukes: DOA
Aug. 8, 1998, Oleksandr Veselovskiy, governor of Oschadny Bank: DOA
Mar. 25, 1999, Viacheslav Chornovil, 61, VR deputy, founder of RUKH and his driver, 35: DOA
Apr. 26, 1999, Borys Marusych, 49, general manager of UkrInMash: DOA
Apr. 30, 1999, Vasyl Vovk, Ternopil governor, and driver, seriously injured; other driver: DOA
Jan. 28, 2001, Oleksandr Yemets, 41, VR deputy, member of Reformy i Poriadok: DOA
Nov. 9, 2001, Gregory Hulka, 44, new US Consul General to Ukraine; his daughter Abigail, 10; driver Yuriy Kotyk: DOA
Conspiracy theories aside, there are plenty of preventable reasons behind most of these terrible, untimely deaths.
To start with, Ukrainian highways are not patrolled. The DAI or state automobile inspection has posts, usually at oblast borders, where they require everyone to slow down to a crawl so that they can keep an eye on traffic. Mostly drivers get stopped only if they are speeding. At night and on holidays, these posts are frequently closed.
The only kind of “patrolling” consists of a DAIchnyk or two waiting to catch speeders coming down a hill, out of a village, or around a hidden curve on the main trans-Ukraine routes, such as Kyiv-Rivne-L’viv. On other highways and secondary roads, you’d be hard put to find a cop anywhere, any time, even if you needed him.
Secondly, post-soviet roadways remain dangerously ill-lit, even at major interchanges. The lack of gas stations, rest areas and other services for travellers mean there is little or no secondary lighting, either. Since older roads are frequently lined by overgrown trees, even moonlight rarely helps. Around the DAI posts, there is generally some serious illumination – if they’re working.
Recently, the government has installed lighting around a few interchanges on some main divided highways. What’s probably making more of a difference is that, in two years, highways like Kyiv-L’viv have gone from having two off-road gas stations on a 600-km stretch, to having one almost every 20 km. These are generally well-lit, even late at night.
Thirdly, there are no lighting regulations for commercial vehicles. Trucks and buses travel with few or no lights, rarely any reflectors. Only international companies and newer ones seem to adhere to any safety standards.
For a fourth, many frequently-travelled Ukrainian highways remain in terrible condition. They are mostly two-way and two-lane with no dividers. They are often in terrible shape, with potholes galore and no markers. They often have narrow, broken or no shoulders at all. This means there’s nowhere safe to duck around an obstacle or avoid an oncoming vehicle.
Finally, too many roads in Ukraine remain largely unmarked. You often can’t even tell what lane you’re in – let alone where oncoming traffic is.
All of this is a recipe for murder and mayhem when you consider two critical factors on the drivers’ side: terrible habits from soviet days and a dramatic increase of all vehicular traffic in the last 10 years.
Dumb-and-Dangerous Habit Nº1: Driving at night with headlights off or only parking lights. Soviet drivers did it to “save” their batteries and headlamps, since there was little traffic on the roads.
Corrollary to DDH Nº1: Not replacing burned-out headlamps or parking lights. Driving the Rivne-L’viv stretch after dark in 1999, I nearly had heart failure when approaching us turned out to be not a motorcycle with a single faint headlamp, but a truck. Its only working light was on the far side! So I had no visual cues as to its width or relative location. To my right, of course, was a broken shoulder with a deep ditch.
At least two of the fatal crashes listed here involved unlit vehicles on unlit sections of roadway. Most of the others were caused to some degree by poor visibility.
Dumb-and-Dangerous Habit Nº2: Passing others on two-lane, two-way highways, regardless of conditions, markings and distance.
Corrollary to DDH Nº2: Driving at excessive speeds regardless of the state of the driver, the road and the environment (pedestrians, cyclists, animals, stationary vehicles, etc.).
Three of the crashes were head-on collisions while passing at high speeds. In the other three, drivers lost control under slippery or otherwise unsafe conditions.
Dumb-and-Dangerous Habit Nº3: The immunity factor. At least four of these accidents involved a Mercedes-Benz.
Let me explain.
One of the side-effects of the crony capitalism so common in the FSU is the “free-for-all” license plate and driver’s permit, as I like to call them. Certain highly-placed or well-connected people get specific letters on their plates that say “Don’t mess with me.”
For a hundred bucks or so, certain people with connections can also buy themselves a permit. If their plate number fails to deter a DAIchnyk, they flash this, essentially saying, “I’m immune. Piss off.”
So, whether the driver is drunk, reckless or a maniac, the cops won’t touch him. It is, in some sense, a license for the driver to kill – both himself and others.
Many of those who have these plates or permits drive fancy cars, like Mercedes, that can do 230-260 kph (140-160 mph for the non-metric types) and feel like they’re standing still. And when they miscalculate, all that’s left to identify the dead is a few loose teeth.
I hope I’m not the only one feeling a bit MADDD. •
–from the notebooks of Pan O.
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