Viaţa are prioritate

On the main highway between Bucharest and Buzău recently, my friends pointed out the numerous roadside crosses memorializing those who died at each location.

We do the same thing in America, I said.

Yes, but do you have 67 of them in one stretch of road of about 55 kilometers?

The thing about that stretch of road is that it is, with occasional bends, dead straight after each bend, with clear views across the Wallachian plain. Except for one T-bone intersection on the exact middle of the inside of a curve just outside Buzău, where drivers turning left routinely block one or both lanes on the main highway curving to the right -- but that's a separate masterpiece of total idiocy by civil planners, who have deemed a traffic light or even curlicue on-ramps unnecessary where no one can see anything in either direction.

No, all those crosses line a straight road, where detecting oncoming traffic is no problem. There is, of course, no median to insulate anyone from people passing each other in lanes of oncoming traffic.

Along the same highway are quite a few signs warning you "STOP ACCIDENTELOR - VIAŢA ARE PRIORITATE." Literally, "Stop for accidents - life has priority."

You'd think this needn't be a reminder in post-communist Romania, but apparently it is.

And only for the accidents, as opposed to people who would've been OK but for someone else's daredevil stupidity on a straight stretch of road.


Romania highway fatalities