Driving in Nairobi is a test of will and one of many causes of high blood pressure.
The only cities in Africa that have worse traffic and worse driving are Accra and Cairo.
Let’s start with those potholes which are the size of lakes. Have you ever driven on the bridge connecting South B to South C?
Right before the bridge begins in South B, there are multiple potholes that take up half the road.
In
Ngummo, the shortcut to Ngong Road is riddled with so many car-sized
crevices that one is better off taking the highway itself than bothering
with the mayhem of manoueveuring.
I have a theory
that, perhaps, someone has decided it makes more sense to get a road or
cement tender, and then creep onto the road in the dead of night to
create these holes.
Surely they grow bigger by the day. Surely someone must be digging them, or deliberately building the roads poorly.
In
so-called suburbia, it is even worse – James Gichuru Road, which cuts
through Riverside and Lavington, has enough craters to liken it to the
surface of Mars.
PEDESTRIAN PROBLEMS
Then there are pedestrians, the ones who walk so slowly on the road that you almost hit them (not to mention bikes and mkokotenis).
The ones who hurl insults at you as you drive by.
And, if you are very unlucky, the ones who take out their version of road rage on you – like the unfortunate chap whose car was burnt to a crisp on Mbagathi Way.
This driver apparently hit someone who was crossing the road.
Unfortunately, the person died.
Never mind that this man was not using the footbridge, and was thus breaking the law.
The passers-by mobilized themselves and trashed his car, burning it to a shell. I hope he had insurance.
To
avoid incidents like that, it is very important to make sure your
brakes are working and that you are driving moderately slowly.
He
must have leapt out of his car and fled – they may have turned on him
next. What else can one do in such a situation, really? Because reason
will most definitely not work.
If the police had gotten
there on time, maybe he would have been safe, but you never know if
they are going to help or hurt you anymore.
The other
option, of course, is to take a matatu, but that also comes with its
fair share of stress. I am not sure if it is the lesser evil.
Not having control over how or where the matatu is driven can be a lot more tiresome than being stuck in traffic yourself.
TRAFFIC LIGHT TROUBLES
While we are still on the traffic, are those automated lights really helping anyone?
Half the time they are not working.
When
they are working, there is a police officer monitoring the flow of
traffic, so they are rendered useless. Besides, are you really going to
be a sitting duck at a red light, waiting for the seconds to tick by in
the middle of the night?
As if motorists flagrantly
blinding each other at night with full lights were not bad enough, there
are cameras at these junctions. Are these cameras actually working?
I do not know of anyone who has been called to court after one of these cameras captured them flouting the law.
Yet,
for four seconds after you pass the cameras, you can’t see because the
‘flash’ is so bright. This seems infinitely more dangerous – if you
can’t see other cars, you are more likely to hit them, no?
Maybe it’s time to buy a bicycle. Or, put a flag on my car and skip the entire hullabaloo…
Twitter: @AbigailArunga
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