Growing up
in a small town, I was fortunate enough to avoid the traffic headaches that so
many people experience every day. Of course we had stop signs with the
occasional stoplight thrown in the mix, but road rage, crazy drivers, and
constant honking were simply not a part of my life. It wasn’t until I moved to
Omaha for nursing school that I had my first traffic headache, but it wasn’t until I moved to Luanda that I had my first
traffic migraine.
My inexperience
in the traffic department made traffic one of the biggest adjustments in my
life when I moved to Luanda. It didn’t take long for me to realize that my
small town traffic free days were over. I was now sharing a city with five MILLION
other people who all needed to get somewhere.
One cannot begin to understand the
traffic in Luanda without understanding the reason behind it. Luanda is made up
of a network of paved streets connected by dirt roads. The roads themselves
play a major role in the chaos that
surrounds this city. The paved streets are in fairly good condition; however,
they aren’t wide enough to handle the large amount of traffic that travels them
daily.
Another problem that exists is that
there aren’t lines distinguishing lanes to help the flow of traffic. What would
be a nice four-lane road in the States may actually turn into an unorganized
six-lane road in Luanda. People typically follow the rule: if you can fit
there, you can drive there. And at times when there isn’t enough space for a
car to fit, drivers take it upon themselves to create room by simply knocking off the
neighboring car’s side mirror. Who needs a side mirror anyways, right?
The side roads comprised of dirt
are infested with potholes. And when
I say potholes, I actually mean small sinkholes that could engulf a car at any
moment. Okay, so maybe that description is a BIT of an exaggeration. But the
potholes truly are larger than any I have ever seen before, and I did live in
Nebraska during the winter of 2010, so a pothole is no stranger to me. I have
watched numerous cars meet their end in a pothole; I just pray that our car
doesn’t have that same fate.
Seeing as the roads aren’t exactly
designed to meet the needs of the high volume of traffic in Luanda, it is no
surprise to me that stop signs, yield signs, and traffic lights are scarce or
even none existent in some areas. I don’t know that I have ever seen a stop
sign in Luanda. This is probably a good thing considering people don’t always
stop at stoplights, so putting in stop signs would be a complete waste of
money. There are a decent number of stoplights in the city, but they are placed
in the most inconspicuous locations.
I came to understand the
insignificance of traffic signals during a Saturday outing with Adam. We were
cruising along, avoiding traffic, when I looked up and noticed an oddly placed
stoplight had turned red. I realized that despite the red light, we weren’t
stopping or even slowing down for that matter. Considering I don’t have a
Luanda driver’s license and many of the rules of driving that we learn in the
States don’t apply here, I didn’t question Adam’s driving. No one likes a back
seat driver, anyway, especially one that doesn’t have a clue what he or she is talking
about. As we (along with the two cars behind us) blew through the light, Adam
looked up and said, “oh, I guess that light was red.” We never did get pulled
over and went about our day as if nothing happened. It’s not like they were
going to send a picture of us running the light with a traffic ticket attached.
We don’t even have a mail box here.
Although
the streets and lack of signs and signals are a major cause of traffic, they can’t
take all of the credit. Taxis are another huge contributor. The taxis in Luanda
are not exactly the typical black and yellow cabs that we have in the States.
Here, the taxis look like blue and white Mystery Machines. And if you are
unfamiliar with the Mystery Machine, just picture thousands of blue and white
Scooby Doo vans driving around the city with “some work to do now.” Despite
their color scheme and style of vehicle, the taxis all come with their own
unique characteristics including damaged mufflers that emit black smoke, tires
that are seconds away from falling off, missing side mirrors, broken windows,
and last but not least, confused
identities. Confused identities, what does that even mean? Well, many taxis
are actually made by Toyota, but the drivers often put a Ford emblem on the car
as if it changes the make of the car. I guess the taxis here didn’t quite live
up to Toyota’s slogan, “The best built cars in the world,” so the taxi drivers
decided that they would help Toyota out and bring a little shame to the Ford
name. Can you imagine if this was legal in the States? The 3-series would practically
be non-existent. Instead, everyone would be driving around in their Ford
Focuses with BMW emblems slapped on the front of the car.
And the
final component to traffic problems in Luanda: the botched thought process. One
concept that drivers in Luanda, especially taxi drivers, have yet to understand
is that staying on your own side of the road will actually get you where you
need to go faster than if you drive on the wrong side of the road. If a driver
sees a line of cars ahead, he or she will often just drive on the opposite side
of the road blocking all traffic from the other direction. Drivers also have an
extremely bad habit of stopping in the MIDDLE of the road to pick up
passengers, drop people off, or just catch up with their friends. Apparently
pulling over to the side of the road would be too inconvenient for them. And this is how the typical Luanda traffic
jams begin.
I have a
whole new outlook on big cities and traffic after moving to Luanda. Sometimes I
love the traffic because the chaos it brings makes me feel alive. But most of
the time, I hate the stress and anxiety that goes along with not knowing if
it is going to take us ten minutes or two hours to go three miles. Thank
goodness everyone here runs on African
time or everyone would be late to everything.
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