Four out of four

Talking of traffic and accidents, I'm off to the Czech Republic for a week or so, to play in a chess tournament in Marianske Lazne. I'm flying to Prague, where I stayed for a week in 1997. I remember it well: but as much as anything else I remember the reckless driving. Not reckless for speed, so much as for direction. I never saw anybody get hurt, but I did see a lot of accidents.

Four, in fact, in the first four days I was there. Nor, when I say I saw them, do I mean I saw the aftermath, four broken cars beside the road with police cars and tow trucks in attendance. I mean I saw four collisions, cars coming together and bouncing away again, describing a slow parabola until coming to rest: nobody hurt, or even, as far as I could see, particularly distressed. Or even surprised: as if nothing had happened, or as if this really did happen every day.