Danger On The Road

An old urban legend purported that in 1895 the only two automobiles in Ohio had an accident. Snopes.com investigated the story without finding any evidence of said accident, however in May 1896 a NYC motorist struck a bicyclist. According to Snopes.com the rider suffered a broken leg, the driver of the Duyrea spent a night in jail for the nation's first traffic accident. Over a century has passed since that day and people still have fatal accidents with cars. China, India, Russia, and the USA lead the way with the leading causes of accidents being texting, drinking, and road rage. In the United Arab Emirates city of Abu Dhabi, a three-day Blackberry phone outage coincided with a 40 percent drop in traffic accidents. Coming from Boston I have endured accusations from non-New Englanders that the Bean Town is the most dangerous driving city in the USA. I personally favor Williamsburg with its high Hassidic population, for the yidlocks are notorious for ignoring everything other than the Torah. Haiti is considered the most deadly nation in the Western Hemisphere, although the odds of dying in a crash in Dominican Republic is ten times worse than its western neighbor. Thailand wins that honor in Asia thanks to the truth of an old joke. "How many Thais can fit on a motorcycle? "One more." Iceland is the safest. Only because the ancestors of the Vikings get so drunk that they can't drive. A good thing for Iceland, because they have only three roads. And I have no car making the New York, the USA, and the world a much safer place.