Tom Vernon is a reporter with Global TV in Regina. In the winter of 2013, he reported from Sierra Leone and served as an expert trainer with Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in Sierra Leone as part of the Shaw Africa Project.
Think back to when you were 15 or 16 years old. Your best friend just got his license and a car. Even though this car was probably designed to fit, at most, one more person in the front and three in the back, somehow there always ended up being 7 or 8 people crammed into it for a drive downtown. Welcome to the Freetown Share Taxi.
Traffic in Freetown can best be described as disorganized chaos. Thousands of cars, motorbikes and even pedestrians all fill the roadways at all times of day. Merchants will walk through the traffic offering whatever it is they’re selling, from bottles of coke to purses.
Rules of the road we get hammered home during driver training in Canada have no place on these streets. If you were to stop or yield or even signal, you’ll be stuck all day. If you were to let a pedestrian cross, 100 more will follow right behind. To get anywhere, you must be aggressive.
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The roads are the roughest I have ever seen. For those in Regina, picture the Sherwood Village Mall parking lot right by the YMCA. That little stretch of parking lot has claimed its fair share of shocks and struts. It has made my car make noises that sent me directly to the mechanic. That parking lot is an airport worthy tarmac compared to some of the roads here.
The share taxi driver has mastered the art of weaving through this chaos. You come to an intersection? Doesn’t matter if there is traffic crossing in the other direction, they just go. A long line of pedestrians walking through the traffic? Doesn’t matter, they just go. The traffic police telling them to stop? Doesn’t matter, they just go.
Making matters worse, the roads here have thousands of motorbikes acting as faster and less expensive taxis. They weave through the traffic with an almost suicidal purpose. If there is even a hint of a crack between two vehicles, they will go. None of this matters of course, the driver just goes.
Because of the potholes, lanes of traffic are only mild guidelines. You’ll find yourself weaving the potholes like a world cup slalom race at Whistler. While avoiding a pothole, you can be on the complete opposite side of the road, with traffic coming back at you, and the driver will never panic. You’ll get back into your lane in time.
The only thing keeping any sort of order on the street believe it or not is the horn. The drivers are constantly on them, letting other vehicles or pedestrians know they are coming or going. Letting potential customers know they are available. Letting other drivers know if they’re not impressed. It is loud and non-stop.
The most amazing part of this scene is I have yet to see an accident, not that you ever get moving fast enough to do much more harm than just add another dent to your car (and believe me, these cars are dented!) Driving on a Canadian street on your way to work, you’re almost guaranteed to see at least one minor accident, and in the winter time several. Here, not once have I seen even two vehicles touch each other, let alone collide. Amazing.
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