Authors: P. J. O'Rourke
Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (13 page)
It's important to have your facts straight before you begin
piloting a car around an underdeveloped country. For instance,
which side of the road do they drive on? This is easy. They drive on
your side. That is, you can depend on it, any oncoming traffic will
be on your side of the road. Also, how do you translate kilometers
into miles? Most people don't know this, but one kilometer = ten
miles, exactly. True, a kilometer is only 62 percent of a mile, but, if
something is one hundred kilometers away, read that as one thousand miles because the roads are 620 percent worse than anything
you've ever seen. And when you see a 50-kph speed limit, you
might as well figure that means 500 mph because nobody cares.
The Third World does not have Broderick Crawford and the Highway Patrol. Outside the cities, it doesn't have many police at all.
Law enforcement is in the hands of the army. And soldiers, if they
feel like it, will shoot you no matter what speed you're going.
SIGNALS
Most developing nations use international traffic symbols.
Americans may find themselves perplexed by road signs that look
like Boy Scout merit badges and by such things as an iguana
silhouette with a red diagonal bar across it. Don't worry, the natives
don't know what they mean, either. The natives do, however, have
an elaborate set of signals used to convey information to the traffic
around them. For example, if you're trying to pass someone and he blinks his left turn signal, it means go ahead. Either that or it
means a large truck is coming around the bend, and you'll get
killed if you try. You'll find out in a moment.
Signaling is further complicated by festive decorations found
on many vehicles. It can be hard to tell a hazard flasher from a
string of Christmas-tree lights wrapped around the bumper, and
brake lights can easily be confused with the dozen red Jesus
statuettes and the ten stuffed animals with blinking eyes on the
package shelf.
Dangerous curves are marked, at least in Christian lands, by
white wooden crosses positioned to make the curves even more
dangerous. These crosses are memorials to people who've died in
traffic accidents, and they give a rough statistical indication of how
much trouble you're likely to have at that spot in the road. Thus,
when you come through a curve in a full-power slide and are
suddenly confronted with a veritable forest of crucifixes, you know
you're dead.
LIKE A NATIVE
It's important to understand that in the Third World most
driving is done with the horn, or "Egyptian Brake Pedal," as it is
known. There is a precise and complicated etiquette of horn use.
Honk your horn only under the following circumstances:
1. When anything blocks the road.
2. When anything doesn't.
3. When anything might.
4. At red lights.
5. At green lights.
6. At all other times.
One thing you can count on in Third World countries is
trouble. There's always some uprising, coup or Marxist insurrection going on, and this means military roadblocks. There are two
kinds of military roadblocks, the kind where you slow down so they
can look you over, and the kind where you come to a full stop so
they can steal your luggage. The important thing is that you must
never stop at the slow-down kind of roadblock. If you stop, they'll
think you're a terrorist about to attack them, and they'll shoot you.
And you must always stop at the full-stop kind of roadblock. If you
just slow down, they'll think you're a terrorist about to attack them,
and they'll shoot you. How do you tell the difference between the
two kinds of roadblocks? Here's the fun part: You can't!
(The terrorists, of course, have roadblocks of their own. They
always make you stop. Sometimes with land mines.)
OF WAY
As a rule of thumb, you should slow down for donkeys, speed
up for goats and stop for cows. Donkeys will get out of your way
eventually, and so will pedestrians. But never actually stop for
either of them or they'll take advantage, especially the pedestrians.
If you stop in the middle of a crowd of Third World pedestrians,
you'll be there buying Chiclets and bogus antiquities for days.
Drive like hell through the goats. It's almost impossible to hit
a goat. On the other hand, it's almost impossible not to hit a cow.
Cows are immune to horn-honking, shouting, swats with sticks and
taps on the hind quarters with the bumper. The only thing you can
do to make a cow move is swerve to avoid it, which will make the
cow move in front of you with lightning speed.
Actually, the most dangerous animals are the chickens. In the
United States, when you see a ball roll into the street, you hit your
brakes because you know the next thing you'll see is a kid chasing it. In the Third World, it's not balls the kids are chasing, but
chickens. Are they practicing punt returns with a leghorn? Dribbling it? Playing stick-hen? I don't know. But Third Wonders are
remarkably fond of their chickens and, also, their children (population problems not withstanding). If you hit one or both, they may
survive. But you will not.
Never look where you're going-you'll only scare yourself.
Nonetheless, try to avoid collisions. There are bound to be more
people in that bus, truck or even on that Moped than there are in
your car. At best you'll be screamed deaf. And if the police do
happen to be around, standard procedure is to throw everyone in
jail regardless of fault. This is done to forestall blood feuds, which
are a popular hobby in many of these places. Remember the
American consul is very busy fretting about that Marxist insurrection, and it may be months before he comes to visit.
If you do have an accident, the only thing to do is go on the
offensive. Throw big wads of American money at everyone, and
hope for the best.
One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten
your safety belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.)
It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is fortyfive minutes.