I'm not kidding… shoot even walking on the streets can get you killed.
If you wanna be a fool anyway and get behind the wheel of a car in Lagos, here are a few things you should know and/or do:
1. Pack a picnic and lots of water if you're planning to go anywhere between 6am and 10pm on a work day and some weekends because it doesn't matter where you're going or how far away it is. You're in Lagos. There will be traffic. As sure as Nigerian food seems to always have sand in it. Leave at least 3 hours early if possible ( I work 30 minutes away from where I live and I have to leave before 6am to get to work by 8am).
2. Make friends with your horn. Get comfortable with it. Meet its family and room mates and fall in love with it and take it to bed because you will be fondling that baby a lot… making love to it in the heat of passion…. Loud passionate love accompanied by guttural declarations of…. Ahem. Well you get my point. Also practice your hand gestures… the rude ones. Embrace road rage.
3. Do not drive a shiny new car if you mind getting dents and scratches on it. Cos it will happen. You don't even have to be driving for your car to get hit.
4. In other countries, you can get away with just focusing on the car in front of you while driving… but if you try that nonsense here… hehhh heehhhhh… If you plan to drive in Lagos, develop eyes on the sides and back of your head. Shoot, if you can squeeze a pair on top, go for it. You have to keep your eyes on the car in front of you, the ones beside you, the cars adjacent to you, the one behind you and the okada that will come from nowhere in 3, 2, 1…
5. If you are going to knock down an okada be sure… and I repeat…. Be absolutely sure that you get it right the first time (and that there are no unsympathetic witnesses). If you're not in a brutal mood (but trust me, an hour in Lagos traffic and you will cheerfully murder the next LASTMA official that you see) you can settle for just splashing them. High points if you're able to totally drench them and send me a picture cos I'm probably stuck in traffic right now and need cheering up.
6. Okadas are the mosquitoes of the road. Fact.
7. Road signs and signals are there for decoration. No one obeys them. I saw a stop sign the other day and my friends and I burst out laughing…. I also laughed at the recycling bins I saw in Onikan, but that's by the way. Do stop at traffic lights though. The traffic officers will come after you for a bribe quicker than you can say "…" If you've got tinted windows on your car you better be rich or have a high ranking officer on your payroll because otherwise, you will be funding some officers' drinking habits and even paying school fees for them. My friend that had to drop 12k one night (and still has tinted windows btw… clever boy) will tell you.
8. Very few people use their signals or "trafficators". Using those in Lagos is like telling the people in the lane you want to enter to speed up and bar your way please. So most people don't bother. My friends yell at me when I actually slow down to let people in. Apparently I'm silly for wanting to retain my civility. Oh well… live and learn. Being female sometimes gives you an advantage if you smile prettily at the guys to let you in. They might stalk you after that and demand your number in return but hey…
9. It is never anyone's fault when someone hits your car. Even if the other car was coming down the wrong way and hit your parked car, reversed and hit it again… it's not his fault. Nooo….
10. If your car breaks down on a deserted road or on third mainland bridge at night… or even during the day and you don't have a tow truck in your pocket and/or you're alone in the car, throw the keys away from you and run. Very far and very fast.
11. If you use your blackberry in your car in slow moving traffic, you'll notice that the hawkers suddenly pay you extra attention and are extra anxious to show you their wares. If your window happens to be down while this is happening, you may find a gun pointed at your head and a polite agbero motioning for you to hand it over. The leds of fancy phones attract them.
12. You can buy anything in traffic. Anything! From cleaning supplies, to puppies to mail order brides. I know people that have furnished entire houses using stuff they bought in traffic.
13. A two lane road can and will become a six lane road at many points during the day. The chances of you leaving these situations with your side mirrors intact are quite slim. A one way road…. Meh… I don't think I need to say more. Drivers will move out of their lane and into your lane (going the wrong way) to avoid a pothole.
14. LASTMA officials cause more accidents than potholes and drunk drivers combined. FACT!
15. Lagosians drink and drive like it's going out of style.
If after everything you've read you still want to drive in Lagos, then my advice is to get a very big all-terrain vehicle with a massive grille. And you must believe that all the other drivers are insane. Because they are.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.
1 comments:
LOL! I actually burst out laughing.
No word of a lie. Lagos driving is crazy. Last time i was home, one bus driver bashed my car and just kept moving. i in turn did not even bother to step out of the car to assess the damage for fear of getting robbed or worse.
I definitely plan to invest in an all terrain vehicle with a bad ass grille when the time comes.
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