Living for Disco

Today, Living for Disco is going to examine the ridiculous things that get debated in Namibia’s parliament. I was going to post something about this a little while ago, but got sidetracked, thankfully, because over dinner on Saturday night, a friend told me about a parliamentary debate that made me go “whhh? Noooo. Not serious? Really? Really? You’re kidding, right?” until he hit me over the head with his garlic naan.

Namibia’s road accident fatality rate is shockingly high. This is partly because people drive like they’re in the Indie 500, and think that overtaking on a blind bend is permitted in the highway code. However, it is also partly due to the fact that driving in Namibia after dark is a dangerous business, because animals tend to jump out into the roads in front of speeding cars. A warthog at 120km per hour can do a horrific amount of damage, and they are only about a foot high. Kudus, on the other hand, will pulverise your vehicle. For those of you who don’t know what a kudu looks like, this is one:
They are fucking huge.

So one of the members of the Namibian parliament suggested, in all seriousness apparently, that because animals cause so many accidents, then they should all be made to wear signs so that drivers can see them more clearly.

I have no idea how he even thought that this was a workable scheme. What’s he going to do? Send crack teams of animal taggers out into the bush with a lorry full of flourescent cycle jackets and a tranquiliser gun?

There was also some discussion about snakes and the difficulties surrounding fashioning signs for them, but the man who came up with the bright idea said they should be exempt, as they don’t tend to cause accidents. Well, thank the lord for that – the world doesn’t need an industry built around knitting reflective body warmers for spitting cobras.

So in another parliament debate about reducing road accidents recently, another Swapo MP tabled a motion that suggested increasing the speed limit to 160km per hour for people who have big cars. In his opinion, making people who drive top of the range cars stick to the speed limit of 120km per hour is more dangerous, because “if one has experienced driving any of these cars, you will agree that you are likely to fall asleep driving at 120 km/h, because the car does not seem to be moving. This is dangerous because the driver can easily fall asleep under such circumstances, thereby creating a danger to other road users.

So, basically, if you’re rich enough to afford a smart car, then you should be allowed to hit unmarked animals at almost 100 miles per hour.

I suppose at least your family will be able to afford a decent burial.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 11:17 am and is filed under Under African Skies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.