I come from what is known as a “third world country” or sometimes called “developing country”. It depends on who is talking. The description is actually not accurate but that is a discussion for another time. The important issue is that we have always been consider countries that don't invest enough on infrastructure. And I agree.
There are many reasons why countries like mine “justify” the lack of infrastructure. Usually is money or not having companies that can actually build what you need. Both of them are short-term problems.
I believe the problem behind the lack of investment on infrastructure in my country is not due by a lack of money but a misunderstanding on the value of life.
I have driven at least 200 times in one of the best highways we have. It runs from the capital to main beach city of the country. The road is in excellent shape and has a good maintenance due to two tolls that collect money from the thousands (even millions in summer) of people that use it. Its the main transport artery between Argentina, our capital (Montevideo) and Brazil. You can say we didn’t had a “money” problem in this particular highway. But even with a good road we still didn’t have over passes over it. So people still die in it. Preventable accidents if we just had them.
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Still, in January 2015, there were 20 deaths on the highways all over the country.
I know car accidents are one of the main causes of deaths and you can bring a lot of statistics that will say that this happens everywhere but here one of the main reasons was lack of infrastructure: we didn't have bridges over highways or high-crosswalks. We had red lights in a highway where the speed limit is 65 mph !! Insane.
Cars and Trucks had to stop on red lights (more than 5) on the 100 miles to our main city-resort destination. If you are reading this and you drive on highways frequently you know how difficult is to stop once you are driving at 65 mph. Imagine if you are driving a 2 ton truck! Yeah. Accidents all the time.
But here is the worst part. People that lived in cities next to the highway ( which is the “river” of the 20th century ) had to cross walking through the highway between the cars driving at 65 mph! This is almost committing involuntary suicide. Lots of people have died.
People have make “piquetes” (strikes) with burning tires to complain for the accidents and demand a solution. They just want “rompuentes” (highway bridges) and a bridge to cross-walk. They just want to be safe.
Why didn't the government invest on infrastructure to solve this problem? My theory is that they haven’t think about the value of life, or if they did, they have given a very low future cash-flow return.
