I have friends from overseas coming to visit me at Christmas, and they have asked me for advice on road travel in Kenya. They plan to hire a self-drive car and do some safaris. What should I tell them? Alison.
Self-drive? Not a good idea if they have not been here before. Urge them to hire a car with a driver. If they don’t want to do that, then tell them at least two things:
“Expect anything. Depend on nothing.” Not the best recipe for a relaxed and safe holiday – these are the ingredients where there is high stress and hazard.
Your visitors may be sceptical. After all, our road and traffic systems are founded on international principles. How different could they be?   Â
They may not be concerned if you tell them we have speed bumps; they know all about those. But probably not many dozens on a single trip, unmarked, 25cm high, sharply shaped, and sometimes on open highways…in places where there is not a single clue of any kind that might indicate their reasonable existence.
Finding these hidden booby traps is a constant focus of attention; not much scope for sight-seeing. Isn’t that sunset glorious? What a magnificent mountain. Screech. Oh, look, there’s a herd of elephants. Slam. The vehicle ahead is going very slowly; good time to overtake. Bounce. Is this our junction; there are no signposts. Thump.
By now your audience may be listening with a more open mind when you add: Bumps are one thing. There are many other crucial differences between your international system and ours.
Kenya’s road markings mean the same thing as elsewhere, but they are often missing, illegible or painted in the wrong place. A stranger will need a GPS to find the way; directional signs are not universally installed.Â
Most roads do not have a hard shoulder, and when they do cars might overtake you on both sides. On multi-lane carriageways, traffic behaves like a flock of weaver birds, with no progressive speed protocol between the inside and outside lanes. Indicating the wrong way, indicating all the time, or not indicating at all are more prevalent than the international average.Â
Stop streets are very similar for cars and trucks, but do not appear to have the same meaning for motorcycles. Your visitors will meet several cars overtaking when there is no room to do so.Â
These have to push into their side and to deter drivers in congested queues, drive bumper to bumper. Driving 100 km without witnessing an accident, or its aftermath, is uncommon.Â
You are highly likely to have to slam on your brakes and drop a wheel off a jagged edge of tarmac quite capable of gashing the tyre wall.
One at a time, some of the time, these customs may not be untoward. But all of them, much of the time, are better managed by someone who copes with these conditions every day of life.Â
Kenyan drivers develop a sixth sense that enables them to take evasive action, often in advance, in a way that is also predictable to others.
A resident driver will also be better “tuned-in” on how to handle the manner of police checks, find alternative routes, read the mood of crowds after a small shunt, estimate timings, and so on. A resident driver will “know the way”.
Most visitors to Kenya get here on an aeroplane, and once here they move about in planes or tour vehicles…driven by Kenyans. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the view. And marvel – in both delight and some disbelief – at what you will see. On subsequent visits (and everyone comes back!) your visitors will know why.
