Recent Chile bus crash
 

10 people were killed the other day on a bus tour in Chile. They were part of a two week cruise to CA and SA, and had booked the bus as a side trip. While buses and motorcycles are very different machines, and the people had no control of the bus, the driver, who survived, said that he was run off the mountain road by on oncoming truck. Just be alert for anything!!

I feel deeply sorry for the occupants and their relatives.

Not having been to either Chile or even SA, yet (7 weeks to go!) I strongly suspect this comes down to a similar pecking order as in Uganda (2 years experience):

Rules for staying in the middle of the road: Trucks > Buses > Minibuses > Cars > Motorbikes > Bicycles > Pedestrian...The biggest wins!!!!

I have (unvoluntarily!!) played chicken with vehicles up the pecking order many times. Fortunately there was always an escape route. While on the bike it was usually the storm drains....In a car - sometimes more hairy...

I guess it is just one of the risk involved in travelling to foreign places.

Just accept, in a lot of places on the road your live is worth nothing when faced with the stronger opposition!!!!

After thought: How many British kids were killed on a German motorway this year? I believe there were two busloads last month??

YOU are nothing!!! Ride safely!!

It seems that the best bet is to look at one of the threads related to the specific country/countries you wish to visit. I remember reading one of Greg Fraziers many stories on HU, and he had mentioned that every so often Europeans were killed on motorcycles in, I think Asia, or Southeast Asia, because the Europeans are so used to proper rules of the road and right of way that they apparently couldn't believe that this large truck wouldn't give way like its supposed to. (I didn't mention this as a knock on Europeans, but rather to really look out for that large vehicle which is really NOT supposed to be there, but is, and if you want to survive, YOU better swerve).

In the Chilean bus mentioned I read that the cause was a mechanic failure in the direction system, and this is not normal as the bus was close to new.

Anyway the tour company rented a not legal bus, but the driver have many experience in this road and did many tours.

There was also a terrible bus accident in Mexico today.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/am....ap/index.html

According to the report, Easter is a time of particularly high accident rates in Mexico.