No matter how much of a Christian, cultured or classy you
are, as long as you drive in Nigeria, especially Lagos, it will take the grace
of God for you not to curse or use derogatory words at other road users
especially the commercial Bus ‘Danfo’
and Tricycle ‘Keke Marwa’ drivers, even
some private motorists are not left out.
When I mentioned the ‘grace of God’, I didn’t mean just the normal
everyday grace but an ‘extra grace’ is what you really need while driving in
the city of Lagos; so you keep your cool at such times and not appear uncouth
in the eye of the public as these aforementioned drivers can really drive you
MAD.
I have always said that NEPA (or is it PHCN), commercial drivers of dnafo, keke marwa, okada et
al will have a special place in hell. As for NEPA/PHCN, that will be a topic
for another day as our main focus today is on the travails of very sensible
road users such as ‘yours sincerely’ which
is moi (me) *laughs*. Believe it or not, I am a very sensible driver and road
user.
A danfo driver
overtakes you wrongly and just when you decide to overlook him the first time and
keep moving he stops abruptly right in front of you in the middle of the road
to pick passengers without a care in the world whether or not he’s causing
traffic or putting the lives of his passengers at risk, should any oncoming
truck or another vehicle loses control and runs into them.
And then again, disregarding the blaring of horns from
motorists behind, he turns his face in the opposite direction when you
eventually drive up to him after successfully maneuvering your way from behind
him because he expects that you will rain insults on him so he avoids eye
contact by turning in that direction.
He’s unperturbed by the insults (which he gets on a daily
basis) given that as soon as he’s done picking up the passengers from that
spot, he makes a concerted effort to overtake you again, from any angle he deems fit as though you are in competition with
him over who gets the passengers from the next bust stop.
Just when you are trying to contain the stupid Danfo driver who is struggling (though with little results)
to get the bus on very top speed ahead of you, behold two Keke Marwas on both sides of your car trying to box-you-in the
middle of the road like escorts in a motorcade, hence you are conditioned to
automatically drive at the pace of the danfo
driver who is still maintaining his ‘struggling
speed’ in front since you can neither overtake him from the right nor the
left. Hmmm! God help you if they don’t leave your car with ‘yellow’ scratches
from those tricycles before you eventually detangle yourself from that mess.
99% of these commercial drivers DO NOT understand the rules
of driving one bit. They think driving is all about just moving a car from
point A to B. Research has shown that many of them from being conductors at the
parks, learn the art of driving from within the parks and before you say “Jack”,
they are out on the roads/highways endangering lives and sometimes properties
as they run into other vehicles or buildings when they lose control.
How about the supposed noncommercial motorists?
What kind of feeling do you get when you are in a slow
moving traffic and you allow someone get ahead of you after he/she might have appealed
only for the person to get into your lane ahead of you and thereafter gets you
out of the original lane? At the end of the day, your lane becomes the illegal
line, you then end up being the one begging to get in line again. *laughs*
Arrrrrghhh! I know that feeling. I obliged someone this
morning on my way to the office, and guess what! Instead of the driver who was a
female to say ‘thank you’, she did not only snort but added “I thought you would not let me in and would also
take the road home after you”. To say the least, I was upset. You see, that’s
why a lot of people do not oblige drivers get into lines ahead of them. If you
asked me, I would say “please don’t criticize
such people as they may have learnt from such experiences”.
And before I take my leave, let me confess that I lost my
cool for a split second as I did not drive off until I had let out a cussing
word “Iyalaya” from my mouth even
though I immediately said “father please
have mercy” even as I drove off feeling a little bad that I just did that. Though
I know that some other persons could have done worse after she said that and
may eventually have led to a physical fight especially if we had scratched our cars
due to a struggle to get in line, I still felt bad that I let out that insult.
These people can really make you mad but then I promise to keep my cool next time. God help me to keep to that promise!
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