Danger in Bolivia

When you are about to head overseas adults feel the need to scare you silly. With the best of intentions they share every horrifying and out right ridiculous story of travel dangers. From kidnapping and stealing your kidneys to being forced into carrying drugs hidden in balloons in your stomach across borders. Many a time a concerned adult has launched into a terrifying story of a young traveller caught in dangerous circumstances only to discover their story has an uncanny likeness to a box office thriller. Or "I had this friend who was wrongly convicted of carrying a large amount of drugs into Indonesia and she's spent years in an Indonesian jail". I'm pretty sure that you are talking about Chapelle Corby, you know her personally do you? Oh and I don't mean to pass judgement but I think you would find that it would be difficult to have 10kg of pot planted on you and not notice, wouldn't you say?
So it goes on and on like this, the stories get more and more frightening, and the truth gets in the way less and less...
I'm not silly I know there is a reality to these warnings and that terrible things do happen and you must always be extremely careful. But thankfully these situations are rare and often take a disregard for caution and a lack of sense to land in them.

But what I find remarkable is that no one warns you of the real danger. The type of danger that is common and tangible. The danger you encounter almost everyday. The danger of......the Bolivian roads! Anti-climax you say...not exciting enough for you? Well let me tell you, if anything is going to kill you in Bolivia...its not going to be druglords, gangsters or even piranhas it's going to be the Bolivian roads!

The roads of bolivia are a death trap. A license in Bolivia is both a death sentence and a license to kill. In Bolivia there is no rhyme or reason to the road. There is no such thing as giving way. A 'give way' here is over-ruled by 'get out of my way'. He who honks the loudest has right of way in Bolivia. There is no standard of vehicle in Bolivia, next to nothing warrants a vehicle unroadworthy. What do you need a windscreen for? What the heck is an indicator? But I did say next to nothing...if one's vehicle does not have a horn how would one know who has right of away. If you have no horn, you have no hope. Additionally the roads are terrible here and instead of slowing down to miss potholes and bumps bolivians just speed around them throwing you into the other passengers.
A red traffic light is merely a suggestion, not a command. A suggestion that is rarely entertained. A speed limit just a sign useful only for scrap metal. And the lanes on the road? Find a driver who knows what they mean and I will give you a million bolivianos.
If you don't have to slam on the brakes at least 20 times in your travels you mustn't be going anywhere. If you don't have at least 10 near misses then you just ain't driving right. If you don't lean on that horn continously then you shouldn't be driving.

Bolivia doesn't have seatbelts. Apparently they are not necessary?  It seems to me that the more dangerous the roads and greater the likelihood that you will die on the road is directly proportional to the disregard of the necessity of the seatbelt. Go figure? And children's car seat would sell here about as well as ice to eskimo's. Children sit anywhere they please.
Everytime we hit the Bolivian streets I pray that God will get us there safely, I try not to swear when that car narrowly misses us or we pull out in front of a semi-trailer and I kiss the ground at the arrival to our destination.

So let me do you the favour that no one else seems to and warn you...when travelling in another country consider that the greater danger may not be druglords, gangsters and ferrocious native fauna but just might be the risk you take when you hop into that vehicle and find that your seat doesn't come with a seatbelt...