I always travel from Morogoro to Dar Es Salaam on Aboud buses. This time around I went for a change; a change that nearly ended my life–Literary.
I arrived at the Msamvu bus station about 5 minutes after the on-the- hour Aboud bus had just left for Dar. I did not want to spend the next hour sitting on a bus waiting for departure. Therefore, I decided to take a bus from Mwanza going to Dar Es Salaam.
We left Morogoro 10 minutes after-noon. The bus was weaving and swaying all-over-the place. I realized my mistake pretty right on the spot. We were about to leave the bus station when the traffic cops stopped the bus. The bus tires were badly worn-out. Money exchanged hands and we were allowed to proceed with our journey to Dar-Es-Salaam.
The traffic stop was the first sign. I should have left the bus right there and then. However, I wanted to experience the ride–so I stayed on. We left Morogoro again after bribing the traffic cops. In about a half an hour after we left MOROGORO we had a front tire blow-out. The bus skidded for a couple of second until we finally stopped. We were lucky. Very lucky because we were not speeding at the time of the blow out. We spent about 45 minutes changing the tire.
The saga continued afterwards. We came to near misses on head-on collisions several times afterwards. One was just a few kilometers away from Chalinze and a couple after Mlandizi.
After we had arrived at Kibaha Picha Ya Ndege. I had had enough of the craziness. I asked the bus conductor to let me out. Stayed at the bus station and waited for Aboud bus to complete my Dar Es Salaam journey.
I guess there will be no Mwanza buses for me in the future………….
www.kibogoji.com 
I read your post with mixed feelings. On one hand, I am tempted to sympathize for all the feel pity for all what you experienced
Nevertheless, I feel that you failed to use your potentials (education + experience in US) to exact change to what was happening. Refusing Mwanza – Dar buses does not solve the problem, let alone help other Tanzanians who are at risk.
The next time you are in such situation, try to do something that will contribute to solving the problem. Something like forcing the driver to behave (you could have done this by building coallition with other passengers or involving the authorities different from those who took bribe).
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I trully agree with you Mr. James. I could have done something to stop this risky behavior. unfortunately, I was selfish to only care for my own life and disregard the lives of other passengers. As they say, hindsight is 20-20. I had the choice (money, time and the knowledge) that probably many fellow passengers did not have.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious.
Rest assured, next time I will be more vocal in these kinds of situations.
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Glad you’re alright, Shabaan.
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With all the bribing going on; why in the HELL could they just not change out the tires…the driver has no value for his own life, not to mention concern for passengers.
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That’s how things are run over here Tesan. Safety is always secondary.
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