Tanzanian roads

Tanzanian roads have been mostly good so far.

However, we find that the better the roads the worse the drivers seem to behave. Whether it’s heavily loaded buses or trucks, or with private cars, people here drive fast and in the middle of the road. When they see us coming from the opposite direction they put on their right indicator on (that’s the one in the middle of the road as Tanzanian drive on the left-hand side of the road) and flash their head lights.

From what we understand, the indicator is a message for the cars following them; to warn them not to overtake as we are coming. The flashing headlights seem to be for us - to let us know that they have no intention of moving from the middle of the road into their lane, and therefore we should pull off to the side of the road as much as we can. If a pothole appears in the road, then any early warning is ignored, and is up to you to dodge the pothole and the now swerving approaching vehicle.

There is also the constant flow of people, bicycles,dogs, donkeys and cattle on the edge of the road. The goats and sheep especially worry us, you never know for sure that they won’t decide to leap onto the road at the last minute. Children are very weary of cars and run away when they see us approaching. We drive slowly and as cautiously as possible.

The numerous police blocks seem quite efficient at controlling bus and truck drivers in the more densely populated areas (villages and small towns). We get stopped almost each time as well, probably due to our foreign number plate. Most of the time we just exchange lengthy salutations in KiSwahili: “Jambo… Jambo sana… Habari… Mzuri Sana...”. We are asked where we come from and where we are going. Sometimes we are asked to show driver’s license and car’s papers, but so far we have never been fined for anything. The police are either much less corrupt than we feared, or we must be doing something right!