The basic traffic rules are defined by the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. However, not all countries are signatory to the convention and, even among signatories, local variations in practice may be found. Yet it is universal accepted that the motor car is king, and woe betide anyone or anything that comes in its way - you or it will be crushed - so don't even think of crossing the road, and don't come in my way.
I'm reminded of several recent pilgrimages when in France, Italy, Spain it was often necessary to walk on motorways and other dangerous high speed roads, cross all types of roads, negotiate incomplete road infrastructure: bridges, overpasses, underpasses, and such like. I ask how it is that walkers that 'come in the way of vehicles,' and not the other way around. The international treaty states,
... drivers are expected to avoid a collision with ... pedestrians, regardless of whether or not the applicable rules of the road allow them to be where they happen to be.
I applied that principle and survived, and furthermore was never apprehended by police and other authorities for walking on motor ways and other high speed roads. Yet I expected to be arrested, several times, by passing police but never was. Amazing!
The international community has created an insatiable monster and is largely unaware of the scale. Let's face it, the invention of the motor car is a world-wide disaster and getting worse by the minute, and appears unstoppable. Millions of people are killed, maimed, injured, hurt. Vast tracts of land are destroyed by a coating of asphalt. Cars spew out pollutants in ever increasing numbers. Cars are noisy. Cars are a nuisance. Cars are horrible! Oil and raw materials are the basis for the invasion and colonising of foreign lands.
What is even worse is that humans are not even psychologically evolved to own and operate motor cars. As soon as humans steps inside their motorcars all possibilities of a peaceful coexistence with other road users (motorists, cyclists, walkers) are immediately lost. It’s war! The motorists’ caveman brain leads to territorial behaviour the moment any aspect of their space is in some way threatened: symbolically or otherwise, and must be defended aggressively. The primitive brain takes unrealistic risks on the open road, and denies the reality of likely death and injury to self and others, and the sheer wanton waste of precious and finite resources – humans included.
