On a road to nowhere
I went out on Saturday night with some of my Timorese friends. It was the first time I’d been in a car with my local friends. In general, people in Timor are terrible drivers. I’m not just referring to the Timorese – everyone drives like a fool.
While we out on Saturday, I saw the vehicles of three well-known organizations
(complete with acronyms for all to see) being driven recklessly around Dili. These are people who should know better, who should be setting an example to others, you might argue.
UNPOL and the PNTL have supposedly started setting up nighttime checkpoints to catch drink drivers. This initiative, I gather, is a knee-jerk reaction to a UN vehicle crashing into a lamppost and the driver fleeing the scene.
In a country with so many bad drivers and so many drunk people, it would make sense to inform people about the dangers of drink driving. I haven’t seen evidence of any such initiative, although I’m sure one of the NGOs will have at least touched on the subject before.
UNPOL’s response, more a warning to its own staff than an attempt to curb drink driving in Timor, won’t have an impact. Down at the Atlantic nightclub on Saturday night, there were about 400 drunk people with their vehicles, including my friends.
We nearly crashed a few times and I made a mental note never to get in a car with my Timorese buddies again. At some points they will possibly kill themselves or someone else.
Perhaps it’s asking too much for a drink-driving campaign to be launched in a developing country, but now is as good a time as any to think about teaching the locals good habits. However, if international organizations can’t even be relied on for keeping the roads safe, there probably isn’t much hope for the rest of us.
Do those big white 4x4s have to drive so fast? Do they need to overtake on blind corners? Are the obligated to rip through quiet residential areas? ‘Tis all a mystery.
I'm sure it must be really scary there if you notice it after been in bangkok, i get stomach convulsions every time i get in a taxi here.
saying that, i'm not sure how much the drink-driving campaigns will help, i really liked the one that ran in england and i remember how interesting it was to look just-arrived asian student there waiting on a bus stop with a jaw dropped and eyes spot on the poster with the ran-over kid. but i think in developing world it's more like cultural pride to do it rather than unawareness, a bit like – you may have had cars for century but we just got them and we have to make the most of it.
in my home country bulgaria, with similar driving mentality they finally decided to run a drink driving campaign. i think was last year, so they got for the face of the example-setting exercise a young olympic hero, put his face on all posters, and paid him with a Hummer(!?). few months later he kiled few people while blind turn taking over, drunk. the campaign may have been with good packaging but when the cultural motivation behind is different the results are different too.
I'm going to Timor next month. Having read your post, I'm now having second thoughts about riding on a motorbike in Dili especially after dark on weekends…..