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driving in Ethiopia
Entry 45 of 79 | show all | print this entry |
(This applies to some extent to all developing countries, except that Ethiopia may lead the world in livestock on the roads.)
The general rule is that you can drive anywhere as long as you don't hit anything. Most of the unpaved roads have very little traffic, so you can drive for long stretches on whichever side of the road looks least rough, or in the middle. Quite often two vehicles will drive straight at each other until the last moment. It's not unusual for two approaching vehicles to both be on the wrong (in Ethiopia, the left) side of the road, but they always cross back before meeting.
With beasts, which are very numerous, the rule is "The donkey is always right," i.e. if you hit him it's your fault. As a result, drivers have developed a remarkable ability to read the minds of livestock. Donkeys are probably the easiest, because they usually stand still and let you choose. Sheep have a fairly predictable flocking tendency, so you just have to edge toward one side of the road and they will flow toward the other. Goats are a little harder to fathom, but the trickiest are cattle, which can range from stolid to skittish. It would be interesting to know how many human lives have been lost after a driver went into a skid to miss a heifer. In two months in Ethiopia I've witnessed some spectacular near-misses, and we've massaged a few cows, but as far as I could tell we never clipped anything.
As a long-time disciple of Elmer the Safety Elephant, whose credo was "Always keep well to the side of the road, facing oncoming traffic," the habits of Ethiopian pedestrians, whose numbers are legion, terrify me. Some mimic the donkey by moseying down the middle of the road, even as lorries blare past. A lot of kids will stand on the pavement holding out something for sale, oblivious to the passenger-side mirror missing their head by inches. Others, with no economic motive, sit on the pavement with their hands or feet stretched out toward the centre, calmly watching the vehicle's tires roll past their limbs.
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