I was sitting beside the driver of a minibus taxi. The middle-aged guy, who looked like anything but the legendarily creepy Addis cabbie, says. “Fasten your seatbelt.” Oh, I almost forgot. The traffic police warned, “Passengers, too, must wear the seatbelts, or else…” I get hold of the belt and try to pull it. Tough, that is what it was. A seatbelt needing bulging biceps! Maybe, I should consider pumping some iron. Finally, it comes some way and gets stuck midway.
No amount of pulls and tugs did the trick. I turn to the driver for some solution. He gave me one; “Hold it to your chest.” What! My chest, a resting place for an out-of-service seatbelt! Of course, I complied. Any traffic officer hoodwinked by this farce should change professions. I mean, unless they have toyed with the rules once again I never heard of seatbelts and passengers’ chests mentioned in the same sentence! I even doubt this one was factory material. It is a pity many cabbies think of seatbelts not as taking precautions but punishment.
Once, this cabbie was talking about a certain officer with quite a reputation for his take-no-prisoners stance. He was rumored to hand out tickets like they were free cookies. “He is not a nice man,” the cabbie was saying. “I don’t like him.” He doesn’t have to be nice! The guy is not signing on the payroll every month for being nice! He also isn’t wearing the white-topped cap for being liked.
Life for those guys is anything but simple. Morals in a nosedive, they have to put up with so much. Once, this officer was removing the license plate from a wrongly parked polished and threatening to look four-wheel drive. As a couple of passersby give him those side glances he raises his voice and says, “I hope it is not the car of an official.” An entire book by itself! The fact is a single phone call, and another family would have been ended up in the streets. You can’t help it but sympathize with them. In a country like ours, traffic rules, or any rules for that matter, can be tossed out the window depending on who the offender is.
What’s wrong with these guys! Getting a single traffic ticket should cost them a few missed heartbeats! One cabbie with a Paul Pogba hairstyle was boasting he got so many traffic violation tickets that he would hold an exhibition. He was almost proud of it! I have no idea how many tickets this guy got; he didn’t say. But joking about it! That’s insane! He should have been worried about his driving license being suspended or canceled altogether. What am I talking about! That’s not how things work around here! No wonder many drivers act like they own not only the roads but the rule enforcers too.
And also there is this terrible, terrible, terrible WMA! …Weapon of Mass Abuse. (Ha!) That middle finger, trying to give the other fingers a nasty reputation but always failing! Every time it is stuck out some car window it is about ‘mass’ abuse! All those in the vicinity who have eye contact get a piece of it. Look, if such things were done by the young and those wet behind the ears, you would have brushed it off with, “Oh, it happens at that age. Time would smooth their rough edges.” But the seventy-plus father of countless and the fifty-plus mother of four do it!
You seldom find drivers who say, “It is my mistake officer. It won’t happen again.” No; almost every driver stopped by one officer or another is in combat mood. The guy jumps the red light in front of a hundred-plus people and claims he didn’t see the lights have turned red! What was he seeing, his sweetheart’s newest Facebook post! You know, the picture with more skin than clothes. Anyone thinking he/she is smartness itself for jumping the red light should be hit hard where it hurts most, their wallets!
To make things worse we pedestrians could be pains in whatever. We start crossing the street and walks as if to say to the CARS; “Come any closer and you’ll be recycling material.” Once this very elegant young girl was crossing the street and she was taking her time doing it. It was as if she was in a slow-motion stage of some dance routine. A driver shouts her way, “Lady, your beauty stops people in their tracks, not cars.” He got her, ‘you-wretched-of-the-earth look for his troubles.
Traffic violations are rampant, and we’re paying a heavy price! We’ve some of the worst reputations; the statistics are anything but nice. So much so that many diaspora Ethiopians back home on vacation don’t drive in Addis. I mean, you can’t orient a guy who has been behind the wheel for two decades with traffic rules. The only solution will have been throwing the book at him; “No driving for the next five years.” That would have turned the tables.
Sometimes Addis roads are so chaotic with blaring horns innocent souls might think some madness virus was on the loose, and airborne. How long that will last I’ve no idea. One thing I know is buying cars is going to become a whole lot harder. With the new tariffs owning cars would be about class and not about necessity. Categorizing cars as luxury items is taking things a little too far. At this age, they are absolute necessities.
There is also this cellphone thing; you can’t use them while driving. Seeing the number of drivers playing hide-and-seek with the traffic officers, you wonder what more could be done to pump some sense into their misused brain! I once saw a foreigner probably being paid a king’s ransom for some consultancy job talking on his phone while driving. Believe me, back in his own country he wouldn’t even have thought about it!
Sometimes with all the traffic chaos, the city’s roads look like a big movie set where everyone wants a slice of the action. It isn’t. What we’re seeing are drivers who think driving is all about the wheel and the fuel pedal. I’m for more strict rules and even stricter enforces. If only ‘activism’ hadn’t achieved such a bad reputation around here, “Keep our streets safe!” would have been on rallying a call socially responsible and worthy activism. Guys, you’re issued licenses to drive cars not to drive us crazy!
The Ethiopian Herald Friday 24 January 2020
Ephrem Endale
Contributer
