In the wake of the death of Oscar Taveras, Vice’s Jorge Arangure writes about just how dangerous it is to drive in the Dominican Republic:
Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on driving fatalities around the world in which the Dominican ranked as the deadliest country in the world for motor-vehicle related deaths. A stunning 41.7 deaths per year per 100,000 people occur in the Dominican.
The world average is 18 deaths per 100,000. Over a 70-year life span, Arangure notes, people in the Dominican Republic one a 1 in 480 chance of dying in an automobile accident.
Arangure writes about the reasons for all of this and how devastating it can be to a ballplayer’s family to lose him in such tragic circumstances. And, of course, driving is not the only peril faced by ballplayers from Latin America. Not by a long shot.
