Ethiopian Drivers

I have travelled a fair amount in the developing world, and despite the many amazing experiences, one thing I have not been impressed by is the traffic safety displayed your average taxi or tuk-tuk driver. As many of you know (probably all of you know), I grew up in Massachusetts, home to the worlds best drivers, so perhaps my expectations may be atrificially high. So, when I headed to Ethiopia I expected disregard for traffic laws and pedestrians on par your typical grand theft auto enthusiast.

I am shocked to relay that despite warnings of the opposite from well intentioned locals the driving is generally exemplary. Taxi drivers do not aim at pedestrians. People use turn signals with a regularity that would put Californians to shame. The horn is used generously, but most of the time it is a friendly warning, rather than an aggressive threat. There is a crossing at Meskel Square (pictured above) with more than 12 lanes of traffic, and only (I am told, I didn't even see it) one, tiny traffic light. I peered across this superhighway with trepidation about whether I would make it to across to Bole and an elderly Ethiopian couple proceeded to walk right by me into the abyss without fear..

I have even seen an organized line of drivers waiting to turn left, there was a red arrow.. but no one was coming from the opposite direction! No one was coming! the road was empty!

I am struggling with how to explain all of this. There does not appear to be any authoritarian secret traffic police force dragging offenders out of their motor vehicles and beating them. There aren't really a lot of cars (at least by American standards), so maybe this cuts down on road rage, but that also means not a lot of practice. People are very friendly in general (I know this is a trite) so maybe that explains why pedestrians are treated like people (though this doesn't seem to hold true for other parts of the world). Perhaps it is the religiosity of the populace, but I haven't heard about any Christian Fatwas about good driving..

I am baffled. I will continue to explore the mystifying cause for this strange behavior and will update this blog with any new information as it becomes available.