Safe Driving for Dummies

Influx of Dummies on Our Roads

There is a noticeable increase of dummies on our roads today. This is not a result of any scientific research. However, I don’t think anyone has to have a certain aptitude to be able to identify a dummy. By dummy I don’t mean a mannequin of the kind used in clothing stores and made of plastic or glass fibre. Neither do I mean a cadaver found in a morgue and used for teaching human anatomy to medical students. The dummy I am talking about is a normal breathing human being of between average and above average aptitude in academics. The dummy I am referring to is also a proven specimen in a technical profession and is also possibly a good home maker judging by the happiness and contentment apparent in his or her offspring.

My concern is not what the said dummy does at home or at work. My source of worry and perplexity is in how the now confirmed dummy behaves when he or she gets behind the wheel of their second most or most valuable asset, depending on personal priorities. In Layman’s terms, I am looking at how abnormally dangerously, otherwise normal people drive.

Mobile Phones

I have noted with both concern and confusion that many motorists usually wait until they get into their cars and are on the move to make that all-important phone. Our parking lot at the office becomes a mess due to the people out to prove (without much success) that they can multitask. This is in fact one of the reasons I have come to believe that even women can’t multitask judging by the way they hold everybody up behind them as they attempt to drive and talk on the phone at the same time. It would be bearable if talking on the phone was the only disaster we were trying to deal with in this city. Unfortunately, the suicidal Nairobi motorists have graduated to scrolling, texting, and even Whatsapping as they drive. I shudder to imagine what they are going to do next (watching movies comes to mind).

Crawling on the Fast Lane

Our new super highway is the kind of stuff dreams of poor countries are made of. So much room for overtaking and extra lanes to allow for safe turning off means there is no reason for pile-ups on the road. This is however not so. I have noticed a now common feature on all our highways. I often find people crawling on the inner lane of a section where one is allowed to drive at 100 KPH. This would be bearable and maybe only slightly irritating were it not for two other goons driving alongside and at the same speed as the dummy on the inner lane. This then means that all of us have to join the procession of seemingly not so bright people in the hope that one of them will realise what is happening and get off the road.

Wrong Lanes

Still on the issue of lanes, there are some dummies who never seem to know where they are going. They approach a roundabout on the wrong lane and attempt to change at the worst possible moment when they are sure to cause a serious gridlock or some dent-inducing mishaps with other motorists. There are the same people who either don’t know or won’t care to use accelerating or decelerating lanes when joining or leaving the highway.

Digital to Analogue Migration

After investing millions (possibly billions) in state-of-the-art traffic control equipment and systems, it is difficult for me to understand why we have to have baton-wielding walkie-talkie-chattering policemen overriding those same systems. The result is depressing traffic jams resembling giant parking lots where we have to watch the traffic countdown clocks as if they were movie screens just to kill the time. The only outcome of this that I can call positive is the fact that those policemen will not become redundant any time soon. I guess that can be called job-creation albeit in a weird sort of way.

From the time the automated speed cameras were fitted on beams high above all the new roads (and a lot of the old ones too), I am estimating most of the bulbs are almost due for change judging by the frequency and intensity of the flashing. They should have been donated for use in some poor old woman’s mud-walled hut during the much-publicised Last-Mile project by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.

P.S. When the maximum speed limit on the Trans-Africa Highway between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Kangemi was set to 50KPH, did somebody actually drive on the stretch to see how practical it was? Just wondering!