Driving around in Yemen, a unique experience

If you are a fan of adventure and love to take risks, then come to Sana’a and try your luck with driving. This is the biggest adventure race in the world. When you are behind the wheel you can do almost anything you like.

You can drive dangerously, in fact you can’t drive too dangerously because everyone is doing the same. You can take the wrong turn, the wrong lane and wrong direction. In fact, you can make a swift turn to the left, up the isle and across to the other side of the road then take your pick by driving with or  against traffic.

If you like wild music, then you invited to  hear the screams of breaks, and cries of tires on the tarmac and national anthem played on horns. You can smell burning tires, leaking oil and petrol. You don’t have to worry about traffic police because since the uprising in Yemen, traffic police have been transformed form bullies to harmless subjects who can’t scare a mice if they tried. This is a stark contrast from only a year ago when they used to lay traps for drivers to fall into and often hide behind pillars with the hope of catching  you red handed so they can “fine” you. Other times they try to confuse you by giving you conflicting  traffic directions  with the hope of getting you to make a mistake.

We used to curse traffic police but now we miss the discipline they used to bring and their marshaling of the traffic. Even if they were oppressive and have a disposition to exact petite bribes, they nevertheless have managed to maintain some order in the traffic movement.    

Now traffic is chaotic to the point of amusement. Driving in Sana’a these days is not a hobby of the weak hearted. The only way you can make it from one destination to another through being as bold as anyone on the road.

 You shouldn’t be scared off when they charge at you, and should not be deterred by the obnoxious looking drivers with  bulging cheeks which threaten to burst under the pressure of qat.

Or when they gaze at you with bloodshot eyes from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke on the backdrop of  scruffy outfits, You shouldn’t be unraveled by  drivers  with unkempt hair who seem to have been prepared to act in one of Alfred Hichcock’s horror movie when they barrage you with of obscene language.

These are dabab drivers; young, violent and wasted who keep close to them thick sticks just in case! Don’t be puzzled if you see them in the morning as dehydrated as a winter leave; in the afternoon lit up like  Christmas trees and in the evening, speechless like  frightened ghosts. Don’t be scared either of the occasional collusion  on to your rear or the side of your car, this is part of the adventure. The battles on the road leave their  enduring marks visible in the form scares,  patched bodies of the taxis, wobbling tires, lopsided chassis, rusty bonnets, deformed shapes, scratched paint and bent bumpers.
 
Drivers in Yemen are unpredictable but perhaps the most common tragicomic scenes is when a gambler driver pulls  out of his own  lane when he sees an opening to overtake the drivers directly in front of him by swirling  to the opposite lane;  overtaking  several cars  then hopefully return to his own lane.

This endeavor nearly always ends in stalling the traffic when our gambler comes head to head with cars on the opposite lane then traffic gets stuck for several minutes, our gambler then tries to squeeze himself  back to his own lane. Sometimes the attempt works and the driver is rewarded with overtaking a few cars but most of the time the traffic comes to a standstill.

A few awkward and puzzling minutes follow, then drivers get out of their dabab or cars to persuade someone to pull back, go forward or just to stop in order to move cars obstructing traffic move out of the way.

This scenario is repeated every day and possibly every hour and still people don’t learn that it is in the their own collective  interest to respect the traffic code. But still people try to win something very small, as small as a few minutes of traffic time while willing to risk their own safety and that of others as well as  waste a lot more time for everyone else.

It is a form of selfishness that is wide spread and a habit that is very damaging. As an offender, you may reap the benefit of an offense if you were the only one committing that offense, but if everyone is doing the same, then no one benefits and everyone loses out. As a result a  state of chaos prevails and even if one person benefits at a  particular place or a particular time that same person will lose out in many other places and all other time and end up being a loser just like everyone else.


The way traffic moves and the way law is  respected and how people treat each other provides a glimpse to the underlying core values of the culture and society on which peoples formulate their attitudes and explain their behavior. It also a major indicator of  how people treat each other and the opportunities people allow others to have.
By Mohammed Humaid
Journalist and economist

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