Mazen Al-Angary's Official Blog
Is a Human Life Worth 3 Minutes?
[This is has been the Editor's Note I wrote for What's Up Magazine on the Jeddah's 17th issue]
WARNING: This note is graphical, and highly descriptive. If you are sensitive or in a good mood, I don’t recommend reading it, since it might alter your current mood.
I was driving home the other day when I saw a traffic jam on the other side of the road, I slowed down ̵ since the cars in front of me forced me to do so ̵ to take a glance at the other side.
A young teenage girl with her little sister were standing on the sidewalk screaming in front of a car, that just hit their youngest brother, while they were trying to cross the road. The driver (a young chap) got out of the car to pickup the child from the hot-boiling asphalt, lifting him to his chest with his head to the side oozing blood from his mouth all over the black hot pavement .
I am sorry if I drew a grim, and graphical picture of what happened, but that little boy had a future that ended in a flash.
We should really sit and think seriously about this, is speeding really worth it, I will bet you… No wait I can get professional sports car racers to attest to this even. If you speed up trying to make it to an important appointment you won’t gain anything more than three minutes (yes 3 only) so do you think a human life is cheeper than being 3 minutes late?
Please drive responsibly, let’s start this new year with a better awareness towards driving behavior, and be extra careful navigated our way through the streets.
Before I let you go, here is one more thing that I have been thinking about for years and never found a logical answer to, you might help.
Why do ALL car manufacturers give us speeds that exceed the Maximum speed limits in almost all countries around the world? Why can’t they build a car that can never go beyond 100Km/h? If you’re going to get a speeding ticket driving over 120Km/h why do you even have the option to reach over 200Km/h in some cars? Where are you going to use all this speed?
It’s like asking for a pesticides to kill mosquitoes, and getting a flamethrower instead. Cars don’t kill people… irresponsible drivers kill people.
Please drive Safe, we wasted many lives already, to gain 3 minutes.
Mazen Al-Angary
Editor in Chief
What’s Up Magazine
Copyright 2010 © Mazen Al-Angary, All Rights Reserved.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Mazen on March 5, 2010 at 10:58 AM, and is filed under Thoughts. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
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about 6 months ago
It Is really sad … what u have told … unfortunately its true … and we see these scenes very often on the roads of Saudi Arabia despite the strict traffic regulations .. the only way this can be stopped is if every one of us mediate and change our ways of driving for the greater good
about 6 months ago
Ur absulotly right but how did u know that it’s going to make a 3 min difference ?! That’s really intresting
about 6 months ago
Toootey,
Thanks for replying, regarding the 3 minutes it is a rough estimate, I made some tests and found that I gained between 3 to 5 minutes.
Another part is that I made an interview with two of the well known Saudi race car drivers on one of What’s Up issues in the past, and I asked them about speeding in a race and on the street, they told me it isn’t the speed that gets you to the finish line first. Here is something from the interview:
“what really matters is the carrying speeds, which you take the corners with, and that should be fast depending on the car and downforce, and of course the drivers ability”
You can find Al Faisal Racing Team interview on What’s Up Jeddah 14th issue, and now on What’s Up Riyadh 1st issue. Plus more info can be found on the F1 article I wrote for What’s Up Jeddah 13th issue.
about 4 months ago
Ur absulotly right but how did u know that it’s going to make a 3 min difference ?! That’s really intresting