Driving in Nairobi, Gadgets

Like many users of smart phones, I tend to install the next cool looking or sounding app only to later discover it (unused) a few months later when I need to declutter the phone. So lately I’ve been very strict about what apps go on my phone.

Now, driving in Nairobi can be a nightmare to the uninitiated, what with the lunar surfaced roads in parts of the capital city, finding slow moving trucks on the fast lane of our so called ‘super highway’, the ever eager and aggressive matatus and our very friendly traffic policemen.  While stuck in traffic on Uhuru Highway near University Way, I once had the misfortune of having a clearly overloaded 5 tonne lorry slowly back into our vehicle as he tried to get his clutch balanced. It was like watching an accident happen in slow motion as the 2m gap become 1m and then 0. I was obviously rather miffed at the incident, considering I had nowhere to move the car to – stuck in the middle lane with cars on all sides. Needless to say (being employees), it was ‘deny, deny’ from the driver and his turn boy and the gentleman from the police pointed out that I must keep a distance of approx. 3 car lengths (yes, in stopped jam) – I suspected a rat. I eventually realised that this was a fool’s errand and opted not to pursue the matter further.

A few months later, I found this nifty android app, DailyRoads which allows you to use your phone as a black box/ dash cam. If you have an old android phone lying around and a means of mounting it securely, it is quite easy to use. There’s a way of turning off the screen so as to avoid excessive power consumption. These are some of the interesting scenes captured.

I ended up acquiring a cheap dedicated dash cam but this one needs to be powered. Either way, next time someone backs into me, there will be evidence!

Of course this can go either way…