Dangerous Driving

I learned a lot about why the guidebooks make such a big deal about the dangers of driving in Tanzania. The highways in this country have a total of two lanes (only sometimes separated by a line). There is one lane for you, and one for the oncoming traffic. There are also some nonexistant lanes for bikes and pedestrians, but they seem to use the highway just as well. If they stray too far into the lane or are taking up too much room they get honked at by the cars wizzing by.

On the way there I had a chance to learn about how the driving worked with a relatively competent driver (my older brother). I learned that if there is oncoming traffic, you are supposed to turn on your innermost blinker. I thought that people do this to tell the oncoming night traffic exactly where the edge of your car is as they pass you close enough for a high-five. After asking about it, however, I learned that blinkers are used to tell the cars behind you that there is oncoming traffic and it is not safe to attempt to pass you. It also gives the oncoming traffic the confidence of knowing that the car behind you isn’t about to jump out and try and pass you (at least in theory).

The way back, however, was at insanely high speeds and 100% blinkerless. While I was far too stressed out to do the conversion in my head, I had a pretty good sense from the shaking of the car and the dial around 3 o’clock on the spedometer that 140 km/hr was probably too fast for these small highways against oncoming traffic and avoiding bikers on the sides. However, it took us getting up to crusing speeds of 160km/hr before I finally spoke up and informed everyone in the car that we were going too fast and that our speed was unsafe. I figured that if I was right, and they listened, I could be saving my own life. If I was wrong, and we were only going 40 miles per hour…..and I was both paranoid and mathematically challenged, then I would just have looked silly to them, and nothing more.

To preserve my sanity, although it was running thin for the entire 6 hour drive, I refused to actually calculate our speed in mph. However, I have since determined that our average crusing speed was around 87 mph with a max of 100 mph and a min of 75 mph. And even though I threw up this morning from this ongoing bug I seem to be having, I spent the entire ride sucking on candies and eating chips as a way to manage my stress in between informing the driver that he needed to slow down.

In short, I temporarily am retiring from visiting other parts of this country…..at least by car. I would say a big bus would be a good alternative, except that the whole reason we went to the Moshi/Arusha region this weekend was to pray at their family church and give thanks for my host-father having surivied a major bus accident a few months ago that he is still recovering from.