Traffic Jams!

Yes, believe it or not, here on the edge of the Kalahari Desert we have a huge problem of traffic jams.

My husband has been commenting quite often of recent years that driving around in Gaborone is getting more and more stressful as the roads are increasingly busy.

Well, today I just read an article in the local Mmegi newspaper that gives some facts to back up these experiences!

- Botswana has the highest number of vehicles per capita of all the developing world countries and even higher than some European countries.

- Vehicle population has doubled in the last five years

- in a population of only about 2 million people, in the last 10 months, 28,000 additional vehicles have been registered.

- Government is considering staggering public service work hours and changing school hours (both of which all start at 7.30am) to help reduce congestion on the roads

Not only are numbers of cars making driving on the roads stressful, safety on the roads is also a concern as well.  Road fatality rates as of 2011 in Botswana were 33.8 per 100,000 population compared to Australia's rate of 7.8 per 100,000.  But according to some calculations from other various bits of data I've collected over recent years I have worked out that in 2011 there was 1 road death for every 580 cars on the road in Botswana.  I used Queensland's stats since that's our home state, to compare with, and found that Queensland in contrast has 1 road death for every 9900 cars approximately!  Which basically means its about 17 times more dangerous to be driving around in Botswana than in Queensland, Australia.  But we are thankful that Botswana is making effort to try to curb these figures and it is not unusual to see educational advertising in the papers alerting people to the dangers of speeding, fatigue and drink-driving.

So when you pray for your missionaries including us, pray for God's protection on the roads.  We are in more danger from cars than from lions or elephants!.....and with the number of cars here increasing in great numbers and most drivers being first generation drivers, the risks are getting higher rather than lower, and the stress of driving is only increasing.  Driving on the roads is usually the most stressful part of doing the shopping!