Bolivian Road Safety

I took this photo last year in La Paz. It either shows the most dangerous hopscotch in the world or the most fun way of crossing the road. Probably both.

Being able to cross the road at zebra crossings at all in Bolivia is a rarity, and being able to hopscotch across, a luxury. In Bolivia, drivers generally interpret the zebra crossing as being the place where they should place their car while they wait for the lights to change, rather than stopping just behind it to allow pedestrians to walk across.

A novel approach to combatting such laxityon the part of drivers is for men and women dressed in zebra costumes (who have presumably been employed to do so by the local government) to stand at zebra crossings when the lights turn red, blocking the traffic until the light turns green and the drivers are free to proceed. This is most prevalent in La Paz, but I have also seen the people in zebra costumes in Cochabamba.

Here there is a video of the zebras in action:

Another thing that has caught my eye recently concerning road safety has been an advert on Bolivian TV in which women dressed up as air hostesses stop traffic in one Bolivian street to show driver how to do up their seat belts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZJTpWkj1GE. The camera then pans to the drivers, who after being instructed, are all doing up their seatbelts. People don´t seem to get the idea that the belts are there for their own safetly. The advert ends with statistics comparing the number of deaths in planes last year in Bolivia (0) to the number in road traffic accidents (5523).