Reality Shifts and then - BAM!

One of many, many things about BsAs that ceases to amaze me is the uncontrolled intersections – mostly smaller streets in the neighborhoods, in-between the big Boulevards and Avenidas, subject to cars coming from both directions with NO STOP SIGNS or SIGNALS at all - drivers from both directions usually reducing their speed to a semi-slow and then, the obligatory glance, either right or left, depending on which way the perpendicular street is running, to double check that your not going to smack into an oncoming car, all over town – everywhere – especially when traversing the city at night - OJO! (1) No one really drives fast in this city, especially on the smaller neighborhood streets... but at night, with less traffic and more drunks, shit happens, never while I’m watching it seems, but it happens… you hear about it, read about it in the papers, watch it on that Cronica TV.

But its also about perspective… and sometimes lack there of. Auto accidents are up there as far as the number one cause of death, at least in the States, mostly drunk driving I think. But we’re in the back of a taxi, finally making our way home at the end of a semi-late night (for a weekday) and were cruising along traquilo with an older taxi driver along a major Avenida, Thomas and I in the back chatting away about nothing, ready for bed.

Suddenly as we pass through a major intersection, making a right hand turn, another car mystically appears in my left peripheral vision, on Thomas’s side of the car, hurdling towards us. The taxi driver mutters some quick curse, I think quickly that maybe he’s gonna hit us but not too bad, but not on my side of the car and then BANG! Everything about what ‘they’ say – car crash survivors perhaps - about car crashes is true and I’ve been through a few now myself; even have a scar on my lip from a minor one in college on a trip out to Vegas from San Diego. Time bends, slows to a grinding slow-motion film scene, almost a series of still photographs but moving, very slowly. But this was a CRASH – BAM, SMASH, SKID, HALT! In a split second it was over. Everyone OK? Miraculously, yes. HOLY SHIT!

The bruise on my leg continues to swell as I write, and the knot on my noggin is still there, but no blood. I start to upload a new photo gallery while waiting for sleep to set in, with the adrenaline still pumping strongly through my tired veins. And I’m compelled to write this down - now - something about the randomness of the crash – any crash - and the lucky cards that all four of us directly involved were dealt – todo bien. Not with the cars, but with us, the survivors of a damn good CRASH!

Afterwards, our driver said we had a solid green as we turned to the right. The other driver apologized… and that was basically that. Thomas was angry and I was thankful, but wanted to leave. It’s never a good idea to hang around for the cops, not in Argentina at least, not under normal circumstances. I didn’t see the light, but felt as if indeed we had the ‘right of way’. But once an ‘accident’ happens – and its called ‘an accident’ for good reason - usually someone is at fault; if not in full, some percentage of parts of wrong-doing that the insurers or cops figure out later. But blame comes up short in moments of crises, of free flowing adrenaline, of who did what and why? Usually someone is hurt and will go to hospital, fewer times, everyone escapes without injury, like tonight. Someone screwed up, but at this point the why doesn’t matter so much - that’s the nature of accidents – there was an error. Even though most all accidents are avoidable – they still happen - people die all the time in cars.

But in the moment of crises, and now during this after-math moment of resolution, calm heads are needed, to end the freakish semi-nightmare that we’ve just barely escaped - not spectators that happened to ‘be right there’ at the moment of impact, but IN THE ACTUAL DAMN CRASH! - through a controlled intersection where we had the right of way. Maybe the elderly taxi driver with younger reflexes could have steered clear, not expecting the other car to keep coming at us with no signs of slowing what-so-ever, doesn’t matter – it happened, like life.

I left my number with the cab driver and said that we’d give a statement if necessary – but we were on our final mission – home - and instead of hanging around for the cops as they sun began to rise behind a blanket of light rain clouds, it was CHAU, were OUT!

Its been a bit of a strange start to 2007, but hey… I’m in Argentina, Latin America – Buenos Aires. That was the idea in the first place and yeah, sometimes there’s lomos de burros in the road (the humps on the back of some donkeys) – speed bumps. But… life goes on, with or without us. Them’s the facts and there’s no other way round it. We survive, or not.

(1) The first time I truly feared for my life here, fully comprehending the frightening game of ‘is there a car coming from the other direction, or not’ was crossing from Encarnacion, Paraguay back over to Posadas, Argentina, on the back of a moto-taxi – that’s a motorcycle taxi – thrilling and maybe a little dangerous in itself. Not racing but cruising through the empty night-time streets of town, always hitting the brakes pretty hard at most major intersections but never really slowing down much on the side streets, the ones with no traffic signals or stop signs. Fearlessly we cross town.

Even when there is the occasional stop sign, NO ONE observes it, not even the bus drivers. But its night, the streets are empty and the fear is overcome by some irrational, ‘I’m invincible’ type of illogical confidence. And then every once in a while, there’s an oncoming car, from the other direction. Now what? The rule is – the car to the right has the ‘right of way’ – which is true in most countries but I finally figured out why, here in Buenos Aires, by a fellow taxi driver.

When two (or more) cars approach and intersection, arriving at the same time, stopping at a controlled stop-sign intersection, it’s always the car to the right that has ‘the right of way’. Both cars acknowledge that they’ve arrived at the same time but the ‘someone’ eventually gives way to the car to the right. The idea behind this rule is this… if two cars are crossing and neither stop at the intersection, crossing at the same time, the car to the right is going to hit the car to its left on the passenger side, protecting the driver, perhaps.

Drivers around the world can be safe if they always give way to the right, and if something goes wrong, it better than getting pounded on the left side, like we did tonight. Its actually pretty amazing that nothing ‘really happened’ minus the few minor aches and pains that will no doubt accompany tomorrow.