Chapter 25: Driving South African Style

I will admit, I was not expecting it to be that bad. After all, I've been faced with many extreme forms of driving in my life. At an early aged, I learned to anticipate and react to Montreal driver's way of merging into adjacent lanes. Then, while driving through Toronto a few times, it became clear that these guys developed amazing skills for rubber necking which can only be countered by driving faster. Recently, I've been perfecting my driving skills in Calgary. Somehow, Calgarians love car pile-ups, specially on beautiful sunny days.

Clanwilliam's main street.

Explaining why South African drivers are so dangerous is very complex. Some has to do with their erratic, unpredictable, imaginative, compulsive, unforgiving and impatient driving behavior. It is also about what they drive. Some cars have seen more abuse then old Russian farming equipment. It certainly has to do with what they transport inside, in the back or top of the car/truck: Dunkies, cows, pigs, ducks all together with as much people as possible. Seat belts? What are you talking about...

Here, passing lanes don't exist. Really, why would one need some when you can use the shoulder or force incoming traffic on there’s. As you probably guessed, speed limits are only suggestions, so are lines on the roads - when they bother putting some.
Walking down Clanwilliam's main street, I realized really fast that cars have the way ahead on pedestrians, not the other way around. I am also not certain if the population of the town completely understands the meaning of a stop sign.

Finally, if you end up having to drive on South African dirt roads, be aware that they are commonly used by locals as training grounds for the Paris-Dakar rally race. But it could be worse, really. Like in New Zealand where they have herds of sheep taking over high ways. Here, we only have baboons. They are mean but mobile, at least.