Rainbolt Travel Diary

Lagos Traffic….Let’s see if I can you give you an accurate description starting from the ground up. As far as I can tell there are two paved roads on Victoria Island. Everything else is a pothole bordered with road. Did I say pothole? That may be understating them because many are the size of a bathtub, with the occasional hot tub sized hole just to keep you alert. The roads seem to vary in width depending on …random impulses. There are no lanes, there are no markings, and there are no traffic lights.

Now lets add cars. We have a range of vehicles in the big city. There are the big new four-wheel drive Land Rovers and then there are two door sedans, and garbage trucks that drag their shocks down the street. Then there are buses. Green and white Volkswagen vans from the mid 1980’s. They are crammed full of people, easily 12 to 15. The conductor hangs out the open sliding door. Remember the Volkswagen Rabbit? They are alive and well here, painted yellow; they have become the taxi of choice. It doesn’t matter what kind of car, the top speed on any given stretch of road is 35 miles an hour. There might be other cars here but I can’t be sure because it is hard to see through the clouds of black exhaust that follows most cars.

Now you have at least half the picture. On both sides of the car is the “okoda” lane. “Okoda’s” are motorcycles that carry at least two people at a minimum. They zoom up, down, around and through traffic. No one wears a helmet, but it seems that if you are a passenger, male or female, you should be wearing a business suit. For every car on the road there are three okodas.

We are getting close now. We have to throw in the street vendors. You need a toilet seat? Go for a drive. Pens, cell phones, peanuts carried on platters on the vendor’s heads, candy, and calling cards are all sold window to window. The vendors will run along side a car to make a sale. There are equal numbers of vendors and okodas. Almost there we just need to through in the beggars. Two types of beggars can be found in Lagos traffic. Mothers and their children are the more pleasant of the two. The mom holds the child up to the car window and the child smiles. Who can say “no” to a smiling baby? The other variety is hoping you can’t say “no” to a physical deformity. We drove past a man with what appeared to three legs the other day. At least we hope it was a third leg.

It is not 38th street for sure, but we still have more. Bring on the animals! Goats, sure why not? Dogs? Ok. Still pretty ordinary…I think we need horses. Yes, let’s have some horses wander down the street.

There are lots of bodies on the roads in Lagos, but they all move. We needed something to stop traffic. Lets put in some police checkpoints to stop cars to look at license tabs and driver’s licenses. Now we need something unofficial to stop the flow of cars. Area Boys run the unofficial checkpoints. Stop the car and hand over some Naira and you can pass. No Naira and you have to turn around.

Traffic would not be complete with out noise. One hand on the wheel the other on the horn. One long beep means (I think) that I officially claim this side of the road for me and I will not yield so move out of my way. Two short taps is a request. May I please squeeze in front of you? I only need an inch? A horn sounds every 10th of a second.

Does this explain why we took three hours to get an ice cream Monday night?