Another Hazardous School Run

I hadn't intended this to become a mini series, but this is "Albanian School Run- The Sequel" And sadly no Jason Bourne to the rescue.

I was driving down the very wide Boulevard away from Mother Theresa Square. This road is paved with bricks & is 3 lanes wide each way (no lane markings again so some drivers make it 4). the lights were green 50 metres ahead, the filter left lane was on green too, so I was driving at perhaps 30 miles an hour, certainly no more. The light had changed to green it wasn't about to go red so I kept going. I knew it was a long light. There was no side road to my right to watch out for either. Usually a hazard.

Suddenly, out of nowhere a middle aged woman came running across from my left straight in front of my car (we drive on the right remember) This is a very wide road, so how she had crossed 4 lanes of cars by the time she got to me AND was still going, still alive & still running I don't know. Normally Albanians stop, & weave in & out. It makes them easier to avoid. This woman just kept running. I didn't have time to think, I certainly hadn't seen her & I was going too fast to avoid her.

I slammed on the brakes & swerved to her left skidding as I went, with no time to check if there was a car to my left (fortunately they were all turning left & anyway there was no one. I automatically swerved out of the way, missing her by inches.)

She hadn't even been looking, as few pedestrians do, she was just dashing across a green light on a very fast busy road at the last minute. If I had hit her I am sure I would have killed her, or if not, given her a fractured pelvis, 2 broken legs, ruptured spleen & possily a broken arm too. We drive a very old 4x4. It is heavy & built like a tank. We bought it a.) because it was cheap & b.) because we felt we had the best chance of surviving an accident better in something like that. An important consideration in this country of the abandoned highway code.

She wd either have been tossed in the air or gone under the front of our car. I was in a complete state for the rest of the journey, my heart pounding and needed another, even stronger coffee to calm me down. (This is why most families use a driver for the school run. We do too, but 2 days a wk I teach so take them myself. So far every journey has been eventful.)

All I want is to have time for a leisurely "So what special have you got today?" or "Hope your speech goes well." I could happily do without masked machine gun toting convoys, mad menopausal women with a death wish & crazy traffic of a Tuesday morning. Is that so much to ask?

I have never come that close before, there was absolutely nothing I could do, yet if I had killed her I would have had to live with that for the rest of my life. I couldn't stop thinking about that. My husband, ever philospohical & coldly rational, said, "Not at all. She would have committed suicide. Anyone crossing a road like that must have a death wish".

What worried me was the fact that if that had happened, you would be put in prison for your own protection, (from the grieving family) & then you would have to pay the woman's family as 'compensation' for her death. And hope that was sufficient for them. There is still this archaic system in place where as a means of financial vigilante justice you give a money offering as compensation. This would typically be 1000s of dollars. It doesn't only relate to how bad the injuries were or whether there was a death, it is rarely realistic in terms of what the person might be able to afford. Conversely, if you are deemed rich, then the amount goes up exponentially. Thus, as a foreigner you would pay tens of thousands potentially, certainly a lot more. So actually this shows it's not about compensation or justice, it's about how much you can get out of someone. It also shows a complete lack of faith in the justice & legal system here (justifiably so, especially as a poor person who can't bribe to get the 'right' verdict)

You can't get personal liability insurance in Albania. I was driving my own vehicle on a private journey so my husband's NGO wdn't cover it. This very scenario happened to one of my husband's work drivers. I wrote about it here.

This is what doubly freaked me out that I could hit (& possibly kill) someone through no fault of my own, but be liable for 1000s of dollars or even go to prison. With only a 5 yr old & a 9 yr old in the car as witnesses, & therefore being reliant on Albanian witnesses in the street, who could easily be bought off, it's a concerning scenario. Everyone has their price here.

Sometimes I fear Albania will finish me off......