Tuk Tuk Invasion - Notepad

There’s a lot of good that can be said about the Tuk Tuk, the little three wheeled car that has been threatening the livelihoods of taxi drivers. In most areas the concept of Tuk Tuks has been embraced wholeheartedly. In Mombasa for example where the punishing heat and high humidity can make it quite a task to walk a few blocks, the tuk tuk is quite welcome for short rides. Their advantages cannot be underestimated. They have created thousands of jobs and enabled people to go to hard to reach places with their door to door services. With some models covering upto 35 Kilometers for just a liter of petrol, they can afford to charge very low fares.

But like every good thing, Tuk Tuks have their downside. The hitherto quiet and serene atmosphere of most streets and other parts of town has been shattered by the characteristic and oh so relentless tok tok tok tok of tuk tuks as they make their rounds. Hardly a minute passes by without one of these noisily zooming past and for those in ground floor offices right along the road, concentrating has become almost impossible.

That is just a problem people may have to evolve around because it seems the little motorbike/taxi hybrids are here to stay. What can and needs to be addressed ASAP is their road etiquette. Some drivers just hit the road with no inkling whatsoever about traffic rules, weaving and meandering through traffic with complete disregard of lane change rules. As long as one can ride a motorbike, he learns the rest on the job and sometimes it’s obvious the errant drivers are just not aware when they’re on the wrong. They’re nowhere near as mad or rude as matatu drivers, in fact majority of them are usually very apologetic when they mess on the road. But obstruction is obstruction. Dangerous lane change is dangerous lane change regardless of what size of vehicle is doing it.

The police don’t seem to pay as much attention to them as they do to Matatus but maybe it’s time they did.

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