February 19, 2005
Drivers with a death wish
Ethiopia's drivers call them the 'Al-Qaedas'. "They will kill you and kill themselves and not even care - they are suicide bombers on the road," one UN driver told me recently. He was talking about the hundreds of new Isuzu trucks that have taken over the country's highways.
Their driving really is alarming. It is not unusual to see two Al-Qaedas side by side coming straight at you, blocking both lanes of the road ahead. You either have to swerve off the tarmac or play chicken and wait for them to nip back on to their side of the line. Most of the time they are also hugely overloaded with piles of Coke crates, eucalyptus trunks or chat bundles stacked up twice as high as the vehicle itself.
No one is certain why one brand of vehicle breeds such erratic behaviour. One theory is that the drivers buy the lorries through crippling credit agreements. Apparently they have to pay it all back within one year. So they spend that year speeding around the country, trying to cram in as many high-paying trips as possible.
Road traffic accidents currently kill 1,800 Ethiopians a year and injure another 7,000. As far as I know, no one has broken down the figures to work out the number of crashes involving Al-Qaedas.
Ethiopia's road conditions have come in for a lot of criticism in the local press recently.
According to Fortune, oil giant Shell has become so worried about the number of accidents, it has taken matters into its own hands.
Alarmed by the increasing carnage, Shell Ethiopia, the largest fuel distributor in Ethiopia with a 60pc share, last week launched an awareness campaign: “Drive to Live”. Shell officials say the campaign is intended to promote the value of safety rules and the benefit of implementing “defensive driving” for drivers employed by the transport companies.
Tony Hickey, owner of the Village Ethiopia travel company, had a great rant in last week's Reporter newspaper, headlined 'Slaughter on the roads - what can we do to stop it?'.
There are a number of reasons behind the high accident rate - poor driving skills, ignorance of traffic regulations, speed, drunken driving, poorly maintained vehicles, and from pedestrians, carelessness and ignorance of the highway code. Since the state is not addressing these problems, is it unreasonable to look to the private sector?...Why could we not look at outsourcing other services, from accident reporting, driver testing, speed traps to traffic signs?"
But there is hope. Last Sunday's Capital paper reported that the Road Transport Authority of Ethiopia had imported four patrol cars to police traffic in the capital.
Posted by aheavens at February 19, 2005 5:15 AM
Comments
That isn't a highway - it's a dirt road. Even as a dirt road it's shittily constructed - the dirt isn't properly compacted, as can be seen by the dust blowing everywhere. How can you suggest they are capable of handling ancient written documents?
Posted by: Asdf at March 6, 2005 12:04 AM
This is actually a picture of a temporary side road set up while the main highway was being very efficiently maintained.
I answer point about the documents in the comments to my post about the returned Ethiopian manuscripts here - http://www.meskelsquare.com/archives/2005/02/a_miraculous_re_1.html
Posted by: Andrew at March 6, 2005 4:37 AM
I had the pleasure of visiting Ethiopia last month - spent a lot of time on the road being mesmerized and shocked by the crazed driving antics of the various kooks in the al qaeda Isuzus. However - on the way back to Addis from Harar I was being chauffeured by an even crazier driver who felt a crusing speed of 140 km/hr was 'slowing down'. We actually passed several of the al qaeda trucks a sure sign that you're driving too fast. The mini-bus drivers that ply the road between Harar and Addis are similarly nuts - these minibuses are refered to as Hamas buses.
Posted by: Phil at January 27, 2006 10:18 PM