Speed does not kill, we do

It is 10 November 2014. We are hurtling at a varied speed of 100 to 140 up the N1 North this morning. Yes, 140 km/h. Mosiuoa Lekota, Julius Malema, DJ Sbu, and Steve Hofmeyr have done better than that. 

A silver VW polo, which I did not notice coming in the rear distance, flies past me. If the law-abiding motorists were clocking 120 km/h, you can guess what the polo was clocking.

Do keep in mind that “expert” law-makers have issued everybody with a 120 speed limit. Forget that some political leaders and other prominent people do not follow the very rules they encourage us to obey; not to mention that they all drive cars which exceed 120 km/h, and have the latitude to clock beyond that limit. Isn’t that a bizarre traffic rule?

We have the 120 speed limit, yet all the cars give an option to exceed the limit. So we stretch this “option” by 140+ to see where it gets us. We live in a free country and therefore we are free to risk ending up in a ditch, in the media headlines, or in the hospital, in jail, or to go meet our Maker. We are free, to kill. But I digress.

Another silver grey car whose make I could not pin down appears from the on-ramp. This is near Diepkloof. In the most spectacular fashion, the driver of this car cuts across all lanes at high speed until he is in the furthest right lane. He literally cuts right in front of the fellow flying in the right lane.

At this moment I have succumbed to the eventuality of witnessing carnage and injury. The driver who is flying from the South had the enough time to avoid ramming into the maniac out of Diepkloof, who, in a blink of an eye steps on the accelerator. His car disappears into the traffic ahead.

Pheeew! That is me as I my heart rate goes up by notches. I catch up with the guy who was forced to come down from (what I think was) 140 to 60 km/h in few seconds. He is fastening the seatbelt.

He is wearing the shades. So I cannot read his emotional state through his eyes. Yes, it is 5h54 in the morning and the fellow is wearing shades, in this overcast and sporadically wet Johannesburg weather, and he is flying up N1 to God-knows-where.

So here we are, flying up the highway, at 120 km/h + speed, before 06h00 am. And it had to take a Pablo Montoya coming out of Diepkloof, who treats the freeway like it is some race track in Kyalami, to remind us, after a close shave with fatal injury, that we must put on our seat belt.

How come we are saying that “speed kills”? Can speed drive?