Think youve been in a traffic jam before?

Traffic in Lagos - Photography by Lola Akinmade
Photo by author
In Lagos, cars driving the opposite direction on one-way streets is just a Tuesday.
Many travelers have their traffic stories merging into the roundabout beneath Arc de Triomphe in Paris, dodging motorcycles in Southeast Asia, cramming into rickety buses in Latin America and most mega-cities have their own share of traffic problems.
In Nigeria however, traffic in Lagos is in a league of its own. I tried describing what navigating through it was like in Back to Sender but couldnt do it enough justice.
Evidence
What makes traffic (also called go-slows) in Lagos legendary is an underlying competitive nature that living in Africas most populous country seems to breed. This intrinsic quality means many people are out looking for shortcuts to edge out their competition. With 150 million people crammed into roughly the size of Texas, 20 million of which are based in Lagos, what you often get on a daily basis are traffic bottlenecks lasting hours.
Bottlenecks which could easily have been avoided if only that bus driving the opposite direction hadnt considered your lane its shortcut.


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