Here in N'Djamena the most popular form of transport seems to be the motorbike. For a capital city there is surprisingly little traffic but driving anywhere requires you to be constantly looking in all your mirrors keeping an eye out for motorbikes that seem to appear from nowhere and weave dangerously in between the cars.
There is no requirement for motorcyclists to take any sort of test and so, not surprisingly, there is a high accident rate. In an attempt to improve road safety the government has recently introduced legislation requiring motorcyclists and their passengers to where a crash helmet. In fact it is supposedly mandatory for a motorcyclist to carry a spare helmet at all times. Even in the short time I have been here I have noticed many more motorcyclists wearing helmets although, as yet, it is not being universally enforced.
As this is Africa the motorbike is used to carry not just people but also anything else that needs to get from a to b. The Chadians don't seem to go in for this in quite the same way as the Ugandans where, amongst other things, I saw a fridge, a coffin, numerous turkeys, 5 children, a large sheet of glass and at least 10 plastic chairs being carried on motorbikes at different times. However, they do have their moments here and there is a story going around at the moment of a man who was carrying a goat on his motorbike (I have no idea how he managed to get it to stay on the bike but I guess that is another story!). In order to comply with the new laws he made sure the goat was wearing a crash helmet...
Apparently the police who stopped him didn't see the funny side of this and the driver was beaten up by them. There are no reports about what happened to the goat and sadly no pictures of it wearing its helmet!
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