"Danger - Bridge in bad shape"

Ever wondered what you would do if you drove up to a bridge with the above warning sign? In the Andes, Colombia, there are plenty of these bridges. I am not quite sure what difference the signs do because everyone has to ignore them, be a car driver, a bus driver or a lorry driver with a load of cows. Even the sugar cane-lorries.

If the bridge now would break and you fall down in the ravine and die, you can at least not come back and claim that you weren't warned so it may be related to liability. But most likely you would be dead anyway so it would not matter so much.

Turning back is not really a choice either because of two reasons; 1) There may not be an alternative road that goes there, or 2) If there is an alternative it will surely take you 10-15 hours to go around the mountains and you are likely to come across more bad-shape bridges there anyway.

So in conclusion, if you die its your own fault except if you are a bus passenger, then you have to blame the driver. This thought made me realise how little control you have of your own fate when travelling by buses in this part of the world and traffic accidents are not directly uncommon. For example, when you go to the bus terminal to buy tickets in Colombia, the companies are required to display a board with statistics of number of accidents, number of seriously injured and number of killed people. All so that people should be able to choose the safest bus companies.

Argentina is the leader country in traffic accidents on the continent, where about 20 people per day are killed on the roads. Soon we are there...