EVOLUTION: Who's to blame?

We certainly came a long way as human beings. Our species evolved to the stage of been able to stand on two feet. However, unhappy with our remarkable achievement and not yet satisfied with the speed of our legs, we decided to find a way to delelop even further. Technology allowed us to progress onto differerent means of transport. Aware of the possibility of increasing our travelling speed, we became our biggest enemy. Many lives are and will continue to be lost during development, racing and on a normal daily commute. Road safety organizations all over the world employ people to prevent and reduce fatal accidents and compile statistics, facts and figures. They also try to identify the niche of road user mostly at risk. In the UK alone a number shy of 2000 people every year die of traffic accidents and nearly a quarter of these are people on foot. The scary fact is that, as human beings, we have been walking longer than we have been driving. Yet, as pedestrians, we still get killed which is proof that we haven't yet learnt how to walk, safely that is! The question is, how are we going to be able to survive in vehicles that travel much faster than our legs? And do we have the capability and the decision-making ability to control our cars? The truth is that we live in a "blame someone else" culture and we are quite happy to be injured as long as we can deny responsibility for it. Even if sometimes this attitude can cost a life or two. Pedestrians walk around listening to their iPod, talking on the phone in the rush of a busy lifestyle. Drivers have the same distractions, cars are loaded with technology which causes distraction as well as chatty passengers. The difference between pedestrians and drivers is the protection, on foot it's null. However, the attitude is that as a pedestrian, if you get hit the driver will pay. Unfortunately some pedestrians carry this wrong  attitude as they obtain a driving licence. They will also think that from inside their car, they now have more protection, abs, airbags, seatbelts, anti-intrusion bars and so on. That's when they become overconfident and all the other drivers around them become lesser drivers. That's a risky and arrogant environment to be in and it does obviously contribute to create those painful statistics. If the car occupants and pedestrians death rate keeps rising, it is proof that, as human beings we haven't evolved as successfully as we had hoped. The bottom line is that everyone should take more care of themselves and value everyone else's life, putting our ego to the side and avoiding to be part of next year's statistics. MG