A very interesting debate.
As a rule, my advice would be pay for nothing...., unless you really really have to.
As a previous poster has mentioned, rocks and things are thrown at as Faranjies in Ethiopia in the hope we will give them pens and sweets like the UN people did...

I used to work for one of the overland companies - and spent 2 years in the Indian Subcontinent. During that time we had a couple of accidents ( not me I might add, just fellow company drvers - thank my lucky stars).

In one a driver hit and killed a pedestrian, who died immediately. A huge crowd gathered and after about 2 hours of discussions and the police providing "protection",a fee of USD200 was agreed to carry the body home and pay for the funeral.

A few months later another driver kit and killed two oxen which ran onto the road. The short story of this - the driver was arrested and spent several months in jail, a fee of USD 3000ish was paid to the owner of the cattle. The company spent several £1000's paying for solicitors, and eventually the driver was smuggled out of India, and a warrant for his arrest probably still exists in India. He was a very experinced driver with over 10 years experience on the road in Asia, Africa and South America....so this could happen to any one of us...

So remember, different cultures place different values on similar events. No matter how good and experinced you are, the sh*t can always hit the fan, and if you have to pay, you pay - simple.

Keep travelling, and keep safe.

Graham

I hit a goat once riding a bike through indonesia. The goat jumped out of the bushes and I'd hit it before I saw it.

Not only did I break a couple of bones in my foot I had to pay $50 for the very dead goat. The locals where very reasonable though - they helped me eat my goat.

A couple of days later I drove through a village where little kids at one end were throwing spikes onto the road and a bunch of teenagers at the other end were ready with tire irons, patches and a portable compressor. That was only $5...

It's all part of the fun of the third world and I look on it as much the same way as when I go into a casino or to buy a car - I know I am going to get skinned and I budget an appropriate amount that I can afford to lose with a smile on my face.

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Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem

I was in India and a similar situation to a previous post... accident, not my fault, crowd gathers, turns to mob, they say i have to pay (which was only $20) to repair the other car (pannier/bike was unmarked, which was remarkable, dont ya love Touratech!) i refused... starts getting very nasty, challenged the biggest guy to be brave and call police, which he did. They arrived and arrested me for not paying!!! took us both to the police station still demanding i pay... i refused and kept seeing more and more senior offices over the next 8 hours... until i ended up in front of the chief of police for the Punjab!! which was getting a little worrying... and he listened to both stories and said... "having travelled to england last year, i believe english man!' and then said the other driver should compensate me! which i obviously refused.

I dont know the full story with the 'Cowergate incident' so cant comment on that directly but...

Should i have paid...? no... and get every other traveller through that village having to pay up for alleged damage/injury... i respect everyones rights in every country, including my own and other travellers.

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Will

Some day so soon....

There seems to be two main camps here - those who will pay up even if it's not their fault, in some kind of 1st World guilt complex, and those who will not be fleeced by rapacious villagers.

Bikers are frequently stoned in Tunisia and in other countries. There's at least one who posted here who would say, " Oh well, if they hadnt gone to those countries they would never have been stoned. It's their own fault".

In an earlier post it was said that human life is more valuable than the lives of animals - patently this is not the case in some countries or cultures.
The expectation that human life is paramount is itself a "1st world" attitude that is not borne out in this world.

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Dave

Ok I can agree india is a totally different situation regarding cows. Just read this-
27 killed as bus falls off mountain road in northern India - Asia, World - The Independent
-but lets not turn africa in to another india....

..Just pay the cow and back to road man...
250 bucks could be a lot of money for that family; don't be greedy.
It's all a matter culture, education and laws.
Pay the cow, even, sacrifice the cow and do a party and everybody happy.
You stuck fight and fight and you loose stamina, time and at the end.. maybe you could finish pay anyway...
Pay the cow... don't be greedy...: thumbup1:\

In situations like this it is probably best to pull your handgun, fire a couple of shots in the air and back away slowly telling all the natives to stay calm.

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Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem

In situations like this it is probably best to pull your handgun, fire a couple of shots in the air and back away slowly telling all the natives to stay calm

Hahaha i like it!!


The problem with this tread is that we really don't know what happent exactly.
So we are all saying what we "think" we would do, but you can't be
100% sure until it happens.

This is a bit extreme,but even here in Ecuador i hear at least once
a month that local people when caching a thief ,they set him on fire alive!!And they show it on the evening news!
Last month i saw how they made a hole in the wall of a police station and throwed a petrol bomb inside so the 2 thieves came running out with there heads on fire.....very very ugly .

Talk about different culture.
Now somebody who kills a cow is not a thief but big groups,locals and big crowds can easily heat up and give the blame to whoever
they like.

Would i pay?
It all depends on the situation!
Its a miracle that you can drive away after you killed a cow,
those thing are big!!

I probably just do like written above:

pull my handgun, fire a couple of shots in the air and back away slowly telling all the natives to stay calm!!

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the cows in Ethiopia are quite skinny though... not as fat and big as cows in Europe or those corn fed ones in the USA... skinny cows are easier to mow down...

FWIW, I came across unfenced and untethered livestock in the road a number of times when I was travelling and I really couldn't understand the 'driver is always at fault' mentality.

I can only say - if I depended on livestock for MY livelihood, I wouldn't bl00dy well want it wandering around at risk of getting hit - I'd want it safely tied up!!

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www.overlandcruiser.wordpress.com

With respect , it doesn't really matter whether you understand it or not .
What this thread is all about is First World perceptions and Third World realities .
Animals have to wander and graze over sparse vegetation and cannot be tied up , it's been that way for many thousands of years . Low incomes do not allow for expensive fencing either and land owning traditions are not the same as western europe or north america and probably don't permit fencing .
It's already been stated that roads are viewed in a completely different light in traditional areas and are not merely a means to travel .

The cattle aren't the problem - WE ARE as we travel at speed through somebody else's country .
The only answer is to slow down so that the animals are aware of you and can judge your speed , 99% of the time they will try to avoid you .

Cattle can be a huge investment for a small farmer in a third world country and to lose one is a tragedy not only because of the immediate loss but also because of the difficulty of replacement or the length of time for a replacement to grow from a calf . If the animal killed in the accident were incalf [pregnant],then the loss is even more serious .

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Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

For me, this sums it up very well:
"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable."
Clifton Fadiman in Bike Bits. The internet newsletter of the Adventure Cycling Association. (US)

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

+1, not only very interesting, but a very realistic and respectful approach.

In anthropology that's called "ethnocentrism": judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture. It's an interesting thing, because we all suffer it at some extent and it requires great consciousness and abstraction to be able to get rid of it (and time). For a French, eating dogs will be immoral ("dogs are cute, men's best friend") and spiders disgusting, but eating horses and "scargots" (=snails) is acceptable for them; for us Spaniards eating horses looks horrible while killing bulls (and others) has been more than acceptable and tasting snails a delight.

So killing cows in Ethiopia may be solely your fault, since bicycles and pedestrians cannot drive them over and you are the strange actor on the road (a possible explanation, I don't know at all).

Whether it is expensive or not or how much one would pay (or not), it's only possible to say it once you are there. Today with the sheppherd alone 100USD may be ok, but with a big group around getting nervous 250USD may be the minimum to keep things calm, who knows. If things go right and you are socially skillful enough (time to smile a lot!), you may still invite everyone to a great BBQ and party that night, have a great time and turn a horrible event into an unforgettable (although still expensive) memory of your trip in Africa. You may even change your vynil seat cover for a genuine leather one or get a new "horn" for your bike!

Esteban

Oh I dunno, if you got $250 for each cow hit by a passing tourist I think you'd want them all to wander about as much as possible

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That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing...