Day 21: Road rage

Well, it took a few weeks to finally see one, but today was the day. An SUV collided with another vehicle and pedestrians were caught in the way.

On my way back from a local "staging area," we came upon a group of people (including Afghan National Police) who had gathered following an automobile accident. It was bad, but not the worse that I've seen. And the police were doing their part in keeping things from getting out of hand.

With one side of the road essentially blocked, traffic started coming straight at us instead. Odd I thought, but it is Afghanistan ... where anything can happen on the road.

In all honesty, I was more than a little surprised it took this long to come up on a collision. There are no rules of the road here and people, cars, troops, trucks, heavy equipment and everything else just mixes in the streets. It's chaotic at best, and a death trap at worst. On several occasions my driver had to slam on the breaks -- the tires letting loose with a squeal each time.

They drive extremely, EXTREMELY offensively. I'd like to say I'm used to hit, having lived in some similar places before, but it still takes time.

It was 110 in the shade today; so if you want to drop a few pounds, you may want to schedule a trip when things are safe enough. Though I hear Dubai, Qatar and Kuwait reach the 140s.