Driving in Juba

I am not yet ready to take up the challenge of driving in Juba.

One of the off-putting factors is that the driving here is on the right-hand ("wrong"!!) side of the road:

This means that I would have to get used to sitting on what would feel to me like the "wrong" side of the car:

The actual roads themselves do not intimidate me, since we had 4 years of dodgy road surfaces in Tanzania to give me a bit of practise with roads like this one near our MAF Juba compound:

We also had dusty roads just like this one here in Juba, where sand and dust fly up from under the wheels to obliterate the vehicles in front:

 However, the roads here are much busier than the roads I navigated on the left in Dodoma! To switch to the right-hand side of the road, with all the extra cars around and all the new bumps to discover, all the dust and all the pedestrians crossing the road, does scare me. I can't help feeling like, with me at the helm, the possibility of an accident would be much increased!
There are also lots of roundabouts in Juba- I would need serious training to remember to go around them in the correct direction!

The type of traffic here also scares me. There are large trucks, lots of shiny 4x4s, military and UN land-rovers and lorries- plenty of larger vehicles like this one, to fight for space with on the bumpy roads and tracks:

 I always worried about hitting a motorbike in Tanzania or Kenya, especially since many drivers do not wear a helmet. In Juba, I believe that even fewer motorcyclists wear helmets! On Saturday, on a trip across town in a MAF car (I was a passenger!!), I had to smile at the irony as we actually spotted quite a few helmets on motorcyclists- most unusual in my brief experience here so far!

We also witnessed a motorbike going "CRASH!" into the back of a 4x4 truck, with the driver dramatically flying off his seat and being propelled through the air until, thankfully, he landed on the  road, sat up and looked dazed, but OK. I hear that the incidence of such crashes is extremely high.

And, as a foreigner here, if I was involved in such an accident, I would be instantly considered guilty unless I could be proven 100% to be the innocent party. Apparently, the view here is that locals have much to gain financially from crashing into "rich" foreigners. Plus, there is so much corruption that it would be very, very unfortunate for me to be involved in a road accident. Alot of hassle and trouble could ensue. This makes me extra nervous to get out and try my hand at right-hand driving in a city which does not exactly provide a gentle learning ground!

So, for now, I think I will stick with being a passenger and a back-seat driver; if I do become braver, I will be sure to blog about that at a later date! Incidentally, I seem to have lost my South Sudanese driver's licence, which is the only licence you are allowed to drive with in South Sudan. I just can't find it anywhere! But maybe that is fortuitous for now!!