Why this speed and consequent death?

I'll start with the easier part of this discussion to deal with. We drive on the right side of the road and our driver's seat is typically always on the left hand side of the car. The only exception to this is for mail vehicles so that they are able to deliver the mail on more rural routes. Now as far as experiencing accidents involving young people on two wheeled vehicles, it was two years ago that my mother and I were going to Cincinnati for a concert and we were unlucky enough to see a young man involved in an accident on his motorcycle. The speed limit is 65 mph in that area and I was going 70 mph, he had to have been going about 90 mph. He ended up clipping a car and flew off the bike. He rolled about 15 foot up the road after he was thrown from his bike and the bike ended up about 300 feet away from him north on the highway. He was lucky that he was wearing protective clothing and only ended up with a concussion and also a broken shoulder, but it was the scariest thing that I've ever experienced in my life.

hi professor I am in the U S, state of California and we have left hand driving here. but we also have the s ame kinds of scenes as you have. Young men driving at terrifyingly high speed on motorcycles and dodging in and out of traffic on the freeways where people are going 70 and these motorcycles are passing them like the cars are standing still. here they must wear helmets or else.But the accidents do happen. Sometimes they get a broken neck and end up in the hospital without being able to even feed themselves, the nerves were severed. I think the young ones think they are invincible and nothing bad can ever happen to them. not so , no so at all.

we stay on the right. and we have bike lanes for the bikers. not seen a biker get hurt at all here.

I have noticed that more and more with younger drivers and riders these days too. They travel at a dangerous speed. I think I did that when I was young too. I grew over-confident and often travelled faster than I should have done on my motorbike. But vehicles were slower in those days and much less traffic on the roads here in the UK. On roads where I rode and later drove a car without accident or incident, I notice that there are many accidents there now. I also, didn't wear a helmet because it wasn't "cool" to do so! Nowadays it is law for all riders to wear a helmet. I used to leave the house showing my father that I had my helmet on, but used to stop around the corner to take it off. With age now I realize how silly it was to do such things in the name of being cool! I knew a lot of bike riders and only one was killed and he had his helmet on! He collided with a horse whilst negotiating a sharp bend and the impact broke his neck instantly. It was sad, but it didn't seem to make much difference to us - we were just as wild as kids are today I guess, but with far less powerful machines. Our vehicles are all right-hand drive here in the UK and we drive on the left. _Derek

Hi Prof., here in saudi, vehicles are about to fly due to over-speed. my maximum speed of 180 kph is the minumum speed to some.. roads and highways are wide and i seldom see a person walking along roads or highways. vehicles are left hand drive here and people may walk wether at the left or right side of the road and aware and careful enough to the vehicles that passes and crosses by.... Gosh, that was really a horrifying accident!!

Unfortunately that happends in many countries!

Here we also have right hand drive vehicles and this arose naturally from the days of riding horse. A right handed person naturally finds it easier to mount a horse from the side nearest their right hand, so they mount on the horses left side. They would then move out on the left hand side of the road and a right handed person would naturally lead a horse from the left side. So, to begin with it was the convention for vehicles to travel on the left side of a track. Napoleon Bonaparte changed this to make his country different from the British and countries in Europe he conquered adopted this novel practice. Americans initially also drove on the left, why they changed I do not know The ancient Romans drove on the left but little is known of other ancient peoples Countries driving on the left have fewer collisions, so it is a same that twice as many people world-wide drive on the 'wrong' side of the road! Here in UK, our average speed for vehicles is a lot higher than in India but our accident rate is much lower, so driving slowly is not the only factor in road safety all the best urban