The silver bonnet and the idiot



They say before an accident some people's minds go blank. What sticks in my mind was the shiny silver colour of the 4x4's bonnet feet away and still coming. It had appeared from nowhere and I couldn´t get out of its way. One of Fiona Christie´s first impressions of Medellín was that she was more likely to be killed by one of the city´s 250,000 motorbikes than by FARC. At least I was going up-market and being splattered under a 4x4.

There are two basic principles of traffic. Firstly, rules are guidelines only, unless the police are present. Daily I wait at lights that turn red, a green man appears and then I still keep on waiting as buses, lorries and motorbikes become colour blind.

The second thing is that drivers assume pedestrians are idiots who wander on to roads and treat cars as if they're part of some kind of Gameboy competition. One local street trader even pretends he's a matador as he dodges in and out of four lanes of moving traffic.

And so it was that the 4x4 driver applied the idiot's principal and stopped inches away. Admittedly I was crossing while a red man was showing, but this is Colombia. And a friendly wave from a relieved 4x4 driver confirmed that.

Photo - Medellín: a bewildering mix of people and traffic

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