My motorbike instructor at Stay Upright asked me to send him photos of traffic in Tanzania so he could see what we volunteers actually face.  Here is the email I sent him.

Hi Ant,

We have been in Tanzania now 10 weeks.  I cannot take a photo that shows how truly dreadful the traffic is!

Michelle and I did some more motorbike training in late July in Dar es Salaam at the Vocational Education Training Authority.  We are still waiting for our certificates to be sent!  Meanwhile the motorbike - a Honda 100 - remains locked in the shed.

I would ride the bike on the quiet dirt road my husband (Steve) and I live on in the outskirts of Bukoba town but there is no way I'd venture on to the main roads or in to the main part of town.  The road rules are arbitrary - the biggest vehicle has the right of way and you can do whatever stupid thing you like provided you have sounded your horn and waved your arms around a lot!  Smaller vehicles had just better get out of the way!

The theory part of our course at VETA included the road hazards - these were poor roads, bad weather, drunk/tired/poor drivers and wild animals. The lions and elephants are the least of our worries!

Doing point duty

The roads are terrible!  The 2m annual rainfall has eroded the edges of the tarmac roads so there is often a drop of several inches at the edges. (And into the potholes!)  The tarmac roads have speed humps and rumble strips that scrape the sump of a standard sedan and some have to be approached at an angle to safely negotiate them.  The road down to town from our place has two metal inspection holes for pipes or cables under the road. These are about 15 cm square, stick up above the road surface about 8 -10 cm and are in the middle of the traffic lane.

I have attached a photo of road works Tanzanian style - dump a truck load of rocks in the pothole and let the 4WDs crazy enough to drive over it crush the rock!  This was outside our hotel in Dar es Salaam.

Road works

The amount of traffic is astounding!  Dar es Salaam was diabolical.  Anyone who rides a bike there has a death wish!  You take your life in your hands riding in a car or dala-dala.  Bukoba (population 100,000) is slightly better but the traffic in the town centre is insane.   The order of priority on the road is trucks, 4WDs, cars, motorbikes,  pushbikes and lastly pedestrians.  You really have to have your wits about you and eyes everywhere to cross the road.  It's like a constant game of 'chicken' and I suspect mzungu (white people) are worth extra points!  I have used 'pushbike' deliberately as they are often being pushed - usually loaded with up to 6 huge bunches of green bananas or 15 x 3m lengths of 2x4 or a builder's wheelbarrow.  They are also ridden on the roads with mind boggling loads!  Motorbikes also carry amazing loads even though they are mostly 125cc engines.  I have seen up to 4 people on one bike - admittedly this was a male driver, his female passenger sitting side saddle, a 4yr old wedged between them and a baby on her knee.  All without helmets naturally!  One of the funniest sites was a bike with a rider, a pillion passenger and a pig (could have been heavily sedated or deceased)draped over the luggage rack with snout and tail trailing on the road either side of the back wheel!  It is not unusual to see women carrying babies in slings on their backs riding pillion - the sight still makes me feel quite ill.

Steve and I have a taxi driver who we use when we are too tired/loaded up to walk up the hill to our house.  We pay him enough to drive responsibly - he knows our feelings about speed and knocking over cyclists!  We have bought a car just this weekend - a small Suzuki Escudo 4WD. We will get to know it on the back roads before braving the highways.  I suspect we'll still use our taxi driver if we need to be in town.

Just push your way through!

Car and motor bike riders do not use head lights here.  Street lighting is poor or non-existant.  People wear dark clothes. I don't know how we haven't seen more accidents than we have - one motor bike crash (head injuries and broken collar bone we think) and one pedestrian fatality (wasn't quick enough crossing in front of a truck)

A friend who works in a hospital teaching nurses has described some of the injuries she has seen, especially the loss of skin!  I have my kevlar jacket, kevlar jeans, Motodry boots and gloves just in case as well as the helmet.  I will give them to someone deserving when I leave.

I hope this tells you something of riding / driving in Tanzania.  It isn't for the faint hearted!

Best wishes,

Jenny Clark

PS The police do random stops of vehicles and check that the driver is carrying the mandatory fire extinguisher and safety triangle - windscreens with cracks all over them seem not to be a problem.  I don't think there is a kiswahili word for roadworthy!