I’ve been living in Athens, Greece for over two decades now. My son, aged 25, recently terrified me. He bought a motorbike. I tried pleading, blackmailing (“I’ll buy you a car!”), yelling, sternly pointing out Greece’s high road toll, particularly for motorcyclists – but to no avail.
In fact, friends and relatives – including his father and brother – scolded me.
“Leave him alone / You’re making things worse / He’s rebellious anyway / He’ll be okay with his helmet / For God’s sake he was in the Special Forces and parachuted off planes and helicopters, scaring him with death statistics won’t help, etc.”
So, I’ve shut up but am still terrified and pray every day. You see, the road toll in Greece is high. Too high.
According to an article in Kathimerini in October 2024, “In 2023, Greece recorded 637 road deaths or 61 deaths per million residents… Preliminary 2024 data show little change in fatality rates… Motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable, representing 38% of all fatalities, compared to 18% across the EU.”
I grew up in Australia where we had those wonderful Transport Accident Commission (TAC) ads, chiefly showing speed and alcohol as road accident causers. The first ad was in 1989, and is graphic. It’s set in a hospital where a drunken driver
causes his passenger-girlfriend serious injuries. Her mother attacks him, and it’s all very emotional and shocking. All of this in a one-minute ad, reminding us that a car is not a toy.
Then these ads kept coming – and they worked. There were also numerous billboards along roads and highways with catchy phrases such as: “Speed kills.”
According to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics, in 1970s Australia, there were an average of 3,613 road deaths per year, with a decrease in the 1990s of 1,957. In the last five years until October 2024, deaths have averaged 1,150 annually. This is a significant decrease considering Australia became more populous since 1970. So, I insist that TAC ads since 1989 played a major part in challenging driver attitudes, leading to saving lives on the road.
My husband, an Aussie (who also lives in Greece), worked here for many years in an advertising agency and at one point was commissioned to brainstorm for ads about safe driving. He mentioned and showed his colleagues our TAC ads. He narrates, to this day his Greek colleagues’ attitudes.
He said many showed shock, turning away from the screen, comments like, “Oh no. We would never accept this in Greece. We would turn off our TV’s or change channels” in reference to the graphic but realistic images and content of the TAC ads.
The only driver ‘education’ here seems to be the road toll of the past few years being recognised on the nightly news.
There are ‘newer’ factors leading to Australia’s (and probably Greece’s) road toll. According to Australia, post-COVID the road toll has been increasing due to “Impatient drivers used to empty lockdown streets” (The Australian Automobile Association 2023).
Interestingly, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) have also been playing a part in increased road toll fatalities, as Prof Stuart Newstead, Director of Monash University’s Accident Research Centre, says in a 2023 article in The Guardian.
Speeding and alcohol were and still are the big killers in both Australia and Greece. In my 25 years in Greece, I have only twice seen breath tests being conducted by police. Insofar as policing here for speed, well, the authorities are trying – but certainly not hard enough; not as hard as in Australia in fact.
At night from around 11pm to 3am, I hear cars speeding on main roads here – and motorbikes. I also see them when I’m on the road. It is mainly young people who basically ‘rally’ – themselves, or with other cars. I just get so angry and frustrated, but then my husband brings up his favourite adage of disbelief, “what do you expect when you have driving schools named ‘Learn to Rally’,” and I swear, this is true.
Unfortunately, occurrences of paying for one’s driver’s license, an age-old practice, still exist here in Greece. Apart from young drivers, this has something to do with the older Greek drivers who aren’t all paragons of road safety.
Not to mention drivers using mobile phones while driving, regardless of age. And there’s the issue of not using seat belts that still applies to many. How many times have I seen youngsters in the front seat of cars standing up and moving around to look closer through the windscreen, while mum or dad drive on carefree. And there’s the surely unworthy cars, or three-wheel mini trucks, loaded with rolled up carpets or flattened cardboard boxes on the back, that just cruise on by – on the national highway. It pains me to bring up these realities.
My family and I live here, in Greece, so I posit: What is wrong with us Greeks on the road in terms of reckless driving? I get that it gets really hot here, so many motorcyclists don’t wear helmets but prefer to hang them off their elbow while driving their bike, or that some parents are in a hurry or whatever and so stick their kids on Vespas without a helmet, sometimes even three people on one motorbike, but why?
Is it an Ottoman 400 year remnant thing, that “God will provide”? I.e. it’s all about fate, so why bother with common sense on the road? Is it the ‘thrill’ of risk taking or anti-authority rebelliousness expressed in driving like maniacs?
Yeah, yeah, there’s some bad roads, but people are killing themselves even on the best of modern roads here too, so what is it? Isn’t careful driving a sign of a civilised society? We hail from the Ancient Greeks for God’s sake. Shame on us, I think, almost in tears at this point.
I spoke to Professor George Yannis, a renowned, international Transportologist – Director of the Dept. of Transportation Planning and Engineering, at the National University of Athens who has lived in Greece most of his life.
He said: “Enforcement, education, awareness-raising, infrastructure improvement and institutional changes are needed and don’t exist today. Greece is being back in this sensitive area regarding road fatalities where many lives could be saved…The most important aspect is to monitor speeding but our sparse enforcement doesn’t seem to be getting through to drivers, resulting in no change to their dangerous behaviour, which is why all these crashes are happening.”
Shame that we can’t self-control, or self-police, and that such a freedom loving people are so undisciplined and destructive, killing each other on the roads. Of course, even careful drivers have accidents, but let’s get a grip and drive properly – bottom line.
