Driving with one hand!
As a sequel to spitting, I think Im beginning to become a social activist. Just for the record it seems like since I wrote the article I have seen many more people spitting than ever before and I have narrowly dodged smothereed by the humongous gobbles of someones salivary juices!
Enough of spitting and back to my topic for the day, driving with one hand. I am not an accomplished driver, not in the least, I drive like a proffesional only in my dreams. My first attempt behind the wheel took place over ten years ago and I have made no serious attempts to try and show off my skills or a lack of them! Each time I try to drive the streets of Lagos my pulse begins to gallop, my sweat pores open up as in a deluge, my mind begins to visualise the wheels and the rider of an okada beneath my own.......as you can imagine driving in Lagos is not on my list of hobbies.
That is why it amazes me to see drivers on the streets of Lagos driving with one hand and the other hand stuck to their ear with a mobile phone in between. I call it foolishness, they must think its chic. Driving and receiving a call at the same time is not being handy. Only a split second is needed before what was a harmless act becomes a disaster. A foolish child crossing the road just in front of your car while you are cruising along at the upper limit of the speed barrier needs you to be in full possession of all your faculties. It beats me how anyone can make the switch between a phone call making quotations of the things needed at a clients site to trying to avoid hitting the child and then avoiding the numerous pedestrians not to forget the ubiquitous 'okada'.
It simply is a dangerous thing to use the phone while driving as it is to have your attention diverted from the most important task of the moment. Calling while driving ranks with anything that makes your attention waver, like eating, scolding kids, fighting...yes o fighting I have actually seen a couple fighting physically in the car. The car swerved dangerously putting not just them but other road users at the risk of reporting to their master that very day. I would have thought that they would know that a car in motion is very different from a boxing ring!
Anyway the moral of the story is that dont answer your cellphone the next time you are driving and your phone rings, don't make that call when you are driving, discourage those who drive you from doing the same and lastly pray for me that I will have the courage to brave the streets of Lagos with my two hands firmly fixed to the wheel.
Enough of spitting and back to my topic for the day, driving with one hand. I am not an accomplished driver, not in the least, I drive like a proffesional only in my dreams. My first attempt behind the wheel took place over ten years ago and I have made no serious attempts to try and show off my skills or a lack of them! Each time I try to drive the streets of Lagos my pulse begins to gallop, my sweat pores open up as in a deluge, my mind begins to visualise the wheels and the rider of an okada beneath my own.......as you can imagine driving in Lagos is not on my list of hobbies.
That is why it amazes me to see drivers on the streets of Lagos driving with one hand and the other hand stuck to their ear with a mobile phone in between. I call it foolishness, they must think its chic. Driving and receiving a call at the same time is not being handy. Only a split second is needed before what was a harmless act becomes a disaster. A foolish child crossing the road just in front of your car while you are cruising along at the upper limit of the speed barrier needs you to be in full possession of all your faculties. It beats me how anyone can make the switch between a phone call making quotations of the things needed at a clients site to trying to avoid hitting the child and then avoiding the numerous pedestrians not to forget the ubiquitous 'okada'.
It simply is a dangerous thing to use the phone while driving as it is to have your attention diverted from the most important task of the moment. Calling while driving ranks with anything that makes your attention waver, like eating, scolding kids, fighting...yes o fighting I have actually seen a couple fighting physically in the car. The car swerved dangerously putting not just them but other road users at the risk of reporting to their master that very day. I would have thought that they would know that a car in motion is very different from a boxing ring!
Anyway the moral of the story is that dont answer your cellphone the next time you are driving and your phone rings, don't make that call when you are driving, discourage those who drive you from doing the same and lastly pray for me that I will have the courage to brave the streets of Lagos with my two hands firmly fixed to the wheel.
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