Well it has been about 3 years since i have been working in Honduras... Cant wait to get back home, it also seems that it wont be that long
In my life I had 0% accidents until I got to live in Honduras... I used to drive very much - sometimes around 300 km (200 miles) a day... Had a temp job as a driver also... More than 2 years in LA traffics...
In all those years of driving I never scratched nor did damage to my or any bodies else car...
In Honduras, what can I say.... I been hit 7 times in the rear bumper of my car for the past year only.... Normal situation: traffic light - you stop and 20 sec later - BOOOM... You can probably guess how MUCH do i LIKE this country... Never the less when company was buying a car I insisted on reinforcing rear bumper... That was the thing that saved a lot of nerves for me... BOOOM and I have a little scratch on my 2 welded thick iron tubes bented in the Z shaped along the trunk and on top of it welded a .5 inch metall sheet. The damage to the other car is unspeakable
Oh BTW i am driving Mitsubishi L200 Turbo Diesel 2,5 L... Its a little pick up truck for 5 person and 2 ton of cargo...
The story I want to tell you is about how I almost killed a men on the road... It was the worthest time for me...
Anyway I was driving on the higway to the factory - about 40 miles... Speed was around 60 mph... As I was getting close to the bus stop i slowed down to aprox. 45 mph... There were no bus but ppl were on the both sides of the road... Highway is resanobly wide for its 2 lines, so taking into account that usial speed at this point of average Honduran person is 60-70 mph I was very safe as I thought... Also just as precaution I let go on gas abnd was slowing even more down... And there he was - as I was driving by one men started to run - he was about 7 meters away from me... The scariest was not that he was runnig towards me, but that his head was turned into opposit direction... He never saw me coming... As pilot would say I almost immidiatly broke to the left, very hard, however the space for manuever was very limited by the ppl staying on the other side of the Highway... So I turned to the left and by some miracle instead of pressing brakes I actually speed up all the way down... That what saved that man's life... I f I would be braking he would have been right in front of me when I would run him over. In real happened the following: I heard a terrible sound of... I dont even know what that sound was... but I finaly hit him with the right side of my car... As I did hit him I pressed the brakes as hard as I could and spinned wheel to the right to avoid running over ppl on the left side of highway. I ended up blocking an entire highway and huge truck rushing towards me... Fortunatly the truck driver saw me doing all those things from a safe disatnce to brake, which he did, stoping about 1 meter from the right side of my car... I rushed to the guy that laid on the asphalt of highway... There were a complete mess with his head... blood all over him and he was uncontious. That poor fella was very lucky, and so was I... When I hit him, He ripped out my right side mirror with his head!!!!!!! There were police watching all that... they pick that guy up and putted him in my car, and asked me to take him to the hospital.. Also the joined the ride... I drove the man to the hospital and they performed all sort of exam on his head... Turned out he didnt even head a concusion....He stayed in hospital for 3 nights and than went home... I was so happy.... I called my lawer and it turned out that I dont need him... Police told me I can go - It wasnt my fault... I asked them if they gonna perform some test for alchohol or drugs... the reply was NO.... Why? it was the other guy's fault...
So I drove out of the hospital on my own....
I see this things over and over almost every day.... Terrible accidents, nobody cares in here about it.......
Just wanted to share this story....
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Best regards
Dmitry aka vfGhosty
[This message has been edited by Dmitry (edited 04-25-2001).]
