Jumping Out of a Crashing Taxi


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Africa » Ethiopia » Addis Ababa Region » Addis Ababa
July 9th 2009
Published: July 9th 2009
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Kovas writing… It was a tough day at my summer job teaching at the Somalian School. On my way home, my head hurt, and I was physically tired. As a taxi finally arrived, I got into the front seat and waited to get to my destination.
Our taxi driver stopped at the side of the road to drop off a few people. Since there was a parked car in front of him, he had to veer into the left lane of traffic. This caused an argument with a big, yellow truck full of rocks that was behind. In retaliation, the driver of the truck threw water into the window of our line-taxi van. No fair! The water hit me too. The driver, furious with the truck driver, finished getting into the left lane but then parked right in the middle of the road next to the other parked car to prevent anyone’s passage. He got out of his car and complained to a nearby military official. The military official told the two drivers to get out of the way to let the traffic pass. Obediently the two drivers parked at the side of the road and got out of their cars to argue. We passengers were left waiting in the minibus-taxi.
The truck driver must have put his truck in neutral because the truck began to slowly roll backwards. I had not seen the driver get out, so I thought he was just backing up. As the truck rolled closer and closer to the front of the van, I wondered what he was doing. Then, alarmed, I realized that the truck wasn’t stopping. When it was inches away from the windshield, I dramatically jumped out of the front seat just as the truck hit the taxi. Crash! The truck shattered the taxi windshield and dented the front. The force also pushed the line-taxi into the parked truck in back of it, which broke the back windshield as well. My shoulder was scraped and there was a piece of glass in my shoe, but otherwise I was unharmed. The two drivers, the police officers, the military officials, and the crowd of onlookers ran to see what happened.
The line-taxi driver was understandably very mad at the state of his crashed truck. The driver of the truck looked perplexed at how this happened. Then, a police officer grabbed the collar of the truck driver and started to forcefully slap him. Then, the angry line-taxi driver punched the guy. The police officer told him not to but then open-fistedly punched him. Another officer went to the truck driver and started to kick him. I tried to tell them to stop and that it was an accident. The two officers looked at me in a strange way and took the truck driver behind a wall.
Wanting to get away from the crash and just get home, I quickly flagged down another line-taxi. I got in, but (wouldn’t you know) the driver of this line-taxi stopped his engine and got out of his minibus taxi to gawk at the accident'. Argh! After five minutes he returned and we were on our way.

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