Afghanistan’s Turbulent History

Not all that long ago, as recent as the late 70s in fact, Afghanistan was a frequent stop on the so-called ‘hippy trail’ between Europe and Southeast Asia.

Kabul’s Chicken Street was famous for its backpacker hostels, cheap cafes and restaurants where hashish was freely available at cheap prices. Young travellers from round the world visited this mythical country as an important stop on their rite of passage to adulthood.

Women walked the streets of downtown Kabul heads bared, proud and free-spirited. University education was available, though primarily to the wealthy and well-connected elite. Young Afghan students with money could travel abroad to study, return home without fear of reprisal and contribute to the common good if they chose to do so. Commerce, albeit much of it derived from shady sources, was booming and the country was on a path to economic, social and religious freedom.

Sadly, that road to freedom was cruelly cut short. 

If one country on this planet can be claimed as a prime example of history repeating itself, Afghanistan must be it.

Way back in the mid to late 19th century it was the hot point of conflict between the Russian and British empires. China, France and Prussia (Germany) also wanted their own piece of Afghanistan. The ‘Great Game’ of foreign espionage has its roots in Afghanistan.

Think now of notorious ‘whistle-blowers’ such as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and ex-CIA apparatchik Edward Snowden leaking information about deep cover spy-hijinks and you have a notion of how many behind closed doors deals concerning Afghanistan featured in international foreign undercover communities more than a hundred years ago.

How did Afghanistan’s situation reach the crucial juncture it faces now?

Afghanistan’s descent into conflict and instability in recent times began with the overthrow of the king in 1973. Zahir Shah was in Italy for an eye operation when he was deposed in a palace coup by his cousin, Mohammad Daoud. Daoud declared Afghanistan a republic, with himself as president. He relied on the support of leftists to consolidate his power, and crushed an emerging Islamist movement.

Zahir Shan ex-king of Afghanistan

Zahir Shan ex-king of Afghanistan

Defining moment

But towards the end of his rule, he attempted to purge his leftist supporters from positions of power and sought to reduce Soviet influence in Afghanistan.

It was this that helped lead to a defining moment in Afghanistan’s recent history – the communist coup in April 1978, known as the Saur, or April Revolution. President Daoud and his family were shot dead, and Nur Mohammad Taraki took power as head of the country’s first Marxist government, bringing an end to more than 200 years of almost uninterrupted rule by the family of Zahir Shah and Mohammad Daoud. But the Afghan communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan – or PDPA – was divided, and splits emerged.

Ruthless leader

Hafizullah Amin, who had become prime minister, was opposed to Taraki, and in October 1979 Taraki was secretly executed, with Amin becoming the new president.

Amin, known for his independent and nationalist inclinations, was also ruthless. He has been accused of assassinating thousands of Afghans. To the Soviets in Moscow, he was looked upon as a threat to the prospect of an amenable communist government bordering Soviet Central Asia.

In a swift chain of events in December 1979, Amin was assassinated and the Soviet Red Army swept into Afghanistan. Babrak Karmal was flown from Czechoslovakia, where he was Afghan ambassador, to take over as the new president, albeit as a puppet leader acceptable to Moscow.

Soviet tanks leave Afghanistan

Soviet tanks leave Afghanistan

Million killed

The Soviet occupation, which lasted until the final withdrawal of the Red Army in 1989, was a disaster for Afghanistan. About a million Afghans lost their lives as the Red Army tried to impose control for its puppet Afghan government. Millions more fled abroad as refugees.

Mujahideen fighters

Mujahideen fighters

Groups of Afghan Islamic fighters – or Mujahideen – fought endlessly to try to force a Soviet retreat, with much covert support from the United States. After nearly 10 years the Soviet Union eventually withdrew, leaving in power President Najibullah, who replaced President Karmal as Afghanistan’s newest leader. He hung on for three years after the Red Army’s departure, but fell in 1992 as the United Nations was trying to arrange a peaceful transfer of power. The Mujahideen swept victoriously into Kabul. After a short interim measure, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani became president of the new Islamic Republic.

Infighting

But their victory was soon soured by infighting as the Mujahideen factions failed to agree on how to share their new power. During the Soviet occupation it was predominantly rural areas that suffered military onslaught as the Red Army tried to flush out the Mujahideen.

But when the Mujahideen took over, it was the turn of urban areas to suffer from the conflict. This was especially true of the capital, Kabul, about half of which was literally flattened. Tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives, and the country slid more and more into a state of anarchy. It was towards the end of 1994 that the Taliban emerged in the southern city of Kandahar, the heart of Afghanistan’s Pashtun homeland. Their initial appeal – and success – was based on a call for the removal of the Mujahideen groups.

Taliban years

At first they succeeded in gaining control of Pashtun areas with little fighting. Mujahideen commanders defected to their ranks. But as their control spread to other, especially non-Pashtun areas, the fighting intensified. The Taliban went on to control about 90% of the country.

Taliban fighters

Taliban fighters

It was in 1996, as they captured Kabul, that much of the outside world first reacted in dismay to the Taliban’s extreme Islamic policies, especially towards the place of women in society. As Taliban control spread, the Western world intensified pressure on the Taliban to ban the growth of opium poppies, Afghanistan being the source of most opiates reaching Europe. The United States, in particular, also began their pressure on the Taliban to give up the militant Saudi, Osama Bin Laden, whom the Taliban described as their ‘guest’ in Afghanistan.

Earlier in 2001 the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar declared that two UNESCO World Heritage listed giant Buddhist statues in the western Bamiyan Valley were ‘un-Islamic’ and ordered their destruction.The global community was outraged at such senseless barbarism but was powerless to prevent it.

Bamiyan Buddha image

Bamiyan Buddha image

As of February 2014, attempts to rebuild the statues without official permission is jeopardising their UNESCO World Heritage status.

Washington blamed Bin Laden for masterminding the suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001. The following month the US and its allies began air attacks on Afghanistan which allowed the Taliban’s Afghan opponents to sweep them from power. Kabul was retaken in November and by early December the Taliban had given up their stronghold of Kandahar.

On 2 May, 2011 Osama Bin Laden was discovered hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killed there by a US Special Ops team, thus ending one of the modern world’s longest running manhunts.

Road to elections

On 5 December 2001 Afghan groups agreed on a deal during international discussions in Bonn for an interim government, at the head of which Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai was then sworn in. The Bonn conference, held under UN auspices, forged a political blueprint leading to elections scheduled for summer 2004.

In June 2002 a ‘Loya Jirga’, or grand council, elected Mr Karzai as interim head of state. A second ‘Loya Jirga’ in January 2004 adopted a new constitution. Since coming to power the US-backed Mr Karzai has survived at least ten assassination attempts. A number of his ministers and other senior figures have been less fortunate. Mr Karzai has been able to exert little control beyond the capital. Turf wars between local commanders have been a feature of the post-Taliban period. And the Taliban itself has re-emerged as a fighting force, worsening the security situation in the east and south-east. Thousands have died while violence and threats by the Taliban and other militants opposed to elections have contributed to landmark elections in 2004 and since. Those elections are notable primarily for corruption as Karzai enforces his hold on power through nepotism and vote buying.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

As many aid organisations have collaborated in opening schools aimed at educating women, repairing damaged infrastructure and implementing a free press (local news, Afghan reality TV shows, more radio stations providing differing points of view, etc.), there remains a lot more to accomplish in helping guarantee the right of law and free speech in this deeply corrupt country.

What Next?

As USA and other military forces (Australia and the UK) withdraw from Afghanistan during this year, much opinion-making mainstream press editorial contributes to an ongoing debate about Afghanistan’s future.

National elections are scheduled for later 2014. Karzai has declared he won’t run for office this time. Who will be his successor? No one knows for sure.

As Karzai’s government has increased its control over more rural areas, his power base has also grown. But with international military support of Karzai’s government being gradually withdrawn this year, how his followers will deal with the re-emerging Taliban is also anyone’s guess.

No one really knows what will happen. Everyone who cares about Afghanistan ponders its hazy future.

One thing is certain.

Afghanistan will continue to exist in a stasis of uncertainty.  

Hopefully, at some time in the near future this historically important country filled with environmental wonders will once again be open to travellers keen on learning more about them.

Afghanistan’s rich and varied cultures should be open to everyone willing to view firsthand its magnificent landscapes while studying its vibrant past.

Traveller Alert!

Below is a press release circulated late last year on various wire services:

‘October 15, 2013, TripAdvisor, Inc. today announced it has acquired Oyster.com, a hotel review website site featuring expert reviews and photos covering about 150 cities. Oyster will continue to operate out of New York City and will be incorporated into Smarter Travel Media. “We’re pleased to add the Oyster team to the TripAdvisor family,” said Steve Kaufer, co-founder and CEO TripAdvisor, Inc. “Oyster has created some wonderful photo and editorial content of hotels in popular destinations and it will be a strong addition to the TripAdvisor brand.” Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.’

I recently contacted Oyster.com in reference to an advertisement seen on MediaBistro.com in mid-January 2014 calling for freelance writers interested in contributing hotel reviews to the website.

Within one week, I received this email in response:

Hi Tom Neal,

Thanks so much for your interest in Oyster.com and for applying for the role of Freelance Hotel Review Writer. We’re happy to tell you that you’ve made it to the second phase of our interview process! Congrats!

Oyster.com is a hotel research tool that provides expert reviews and photos, and we’re getting ready to review more hotels around the world. Our photographers will visit thousands of hotels in the coming year, and they will provide our writers with surveys from their visits and hundreds of high-quality photos for each hotel (allowing the writer to get a visual tour of the property).

Since we will be covering so many hotels, we are looking for writers who will work with us on an ongoing basis and who will have the bandwidth for 10-20 hotel reviews a week. We will be hiring two people in the short-term, and will be looking to bring on more writers in the coming months.

We pay $50 per 500-word review that you write. Please note that this role does not involve travel.

****If you’re interested in the position, we’re asking that you complete an edit test for us.**** This allows us to compare qualified applicants “apples to apples” and is a crucial part of our recruitment process.

WRITING TEST

• Deadline: Monday, Jan. 27th, 5 p.m. EST
• To submit your test, reply to this email and ATTACH your work as a document.
• PLEASE VIEW INSTRUCTIONS HERE: http://bit.ly/19LPQen

Please let us know if you are planning to do the test. We look forward to reviewing your work!

Best,

The Oyster.com Team

I quote the Oyster.com email in full but am unable to quote my response as it was sent via Oyster.com’s CMS email system and I’m unable to retrieve it.

I can summarise my reply here.

I refused the offer of work as I believe an honest hotel review should be written based on the writer’s experience of staying at the hotel. I pointed out that my integrity as a critic would be jeopardised if I contributed to Oyster.com under these circumstances. I stated that I didn’t believe it possible to review a hotel I’d never even seen much less slept in. I also pointed out that the payment of 10 cents per word was derisory.

Here are a number of photo examples Oyster.com provided upon which I was to base my review as part of their application to contribute process. All the photos were sent in low res format. I haven’t altered the size of the files.

Hotel lobby?

Hotel lobby?

King Executive room bedside table?

King Executive room bedside table?

King Executive room hallway?

King Executive room hallway?

King Executive room number?

King Executive room number?

What does this all mean for travellers?

From my point of view, the major problem with the content on user generated travel websites is that it’s too easily manipulated and is often based on erroneous data collection. The other outstanding problem is the one of unfair criticism.

For instance, TripAdvisor is continually having problems in managing its content. Too many competitors with axes to grind against competing businesses have got away with writing negative reviews based purely upon jealousy or anger or both. Those reviews get published and the innocent victims are business owners trying to run their operations as best they can.

For owners of very small hotels and restaurants who are doing the right thing, too much valuable time can be spent replying to un-justified and erroneous complaints sent in by shonky operators or jealous competitors.

TripAdvisor has attempted to rectify the problems with its monitoring system but large gaps continue to cause great damage in the overall hospitality framework.

Good operators suffer while dishonest operators manipulate TripAdvisor to their own advantage.

Of course the ones who suffer most are readers and users.

Any reader naive enough to rely on Oyster.com for an authentic hotel review should study the facts first.

The reviews are not based on an actual experience.

The reviews are written based on a cursory scan of neutral photographs of properties the author has no actual experience visiting in person.

Imagine a film review based on a press release, the reviewer didn’t see the film. Or a theatrical review where the critic didn’t see the play? Or an automobile review the writer didn’t drive?

Would any sensible person take those reviews seriously?

I believe not.

A hotel review written based on zero personal experience, not seeing it or sleeping in it, is just as misleading to the reader.

It’s time to talk seriously and critically about the elephant in the room.

The press release of October 15, 2013 finishes here:

‘About TripAdvisor TripAdvisor® is the world’s largest travel site*, enabling travelers to plan and have the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, with more than 260 million unique monthly visitors**, and more than 100 million reviews and opinions covering more than 2.7 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions. The sites operate in 34 countries worldwide, including China under daodao.com. TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.’

Be aware travellers, be very aware.

Australia is well known internationally for its vibrant regional tourism scene, primarily driven by landscapes and wildlife.

Ask a typical international traveller what they think of when they consider Australia (if they do at all) and they’ll respond in one of two ways, wildlife: kangaroos, koalas and maybe platypus or landscape: Uluru, Great Barrier Reef and maybe Kakadu.

The ATC (Australia Tourism Commission see www.tourism.australia.com) has for decades based its international marketing campaigns largely on those holy grails of Australian tourism. Scenery dominates almost all television and print media coverage, which isn’t necessarily a bad approach. Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu are all unique and should be visited by tourists bent on signing off on their personal bucket lists.

But times are changing, largely due to an ever increasing sophistication of tastes and social media’s widening reach into markets dominated by food and wine tourists intent on exploring culture represented by what local people eat and drink.

The difference between people who eat (and drink) to live and people who live to eat (and drink) is more distinct than ever. Let’s face it, mass produced fast food and soft drinks will always appeal to lowest common denominator demographics where price is the primary decision maker. I’m talking about real statistics here and though there are always exceptions to every rule, the difference in average tourism spend between a Macca’s eating Coke drinking regular customer and one who avoids Macca’s and Coke as authentic sustenance is noticeably distinct.

Honestly speaking, I’ve never seen a McDonald’s food wrapper or an empty plastic bottle of Coke left behind at a boutique wine cellar door as carelessly tossed rubbish. It’s as if a social divide exists between one customer base and another. A Macmeal and Coke consumer tends not to care very much about saltbush fed lamb and Pinot Noir.

My theory about food and wine oriented tourism in Australia is a simple one based on close observation over a number of years.

In marketing terms, wine is the early adaptor. Wineries set the pace and other tourism businesses follow once a clear market led by visitors keen not only to buy wines, but dine and rest well when doing so is identified.

When an interesting, small-scale, family owned local wine industry is established, a few smart restaurateurs set up shop to take advantage of growing numbers of cellar door visitors and the significantly increased local customer base, a process that takes about ten years.

After another ten years or so, a few really outstanding boutique accommodation places open their doors to visitors looking for somewhere lovely to lay their heads and rest their stomachs after consuming bucket loads of great wine and food. Good-bye Country Comfort, Flag Inn and other bog standard motels and hello Hunter Valley’s Tower Lodge (www.towerestatewines.com), Barossa Valley’s The Louise (www.thelouise.com.au), Lower Alpine Valleys in Victoria the Lindenwarrah Lodge (www.lancemore.com.au) and Margaret River’s Cape Lodge (www.capelodge.com.au) citing for example, four outstanding small boutique hotels whose businesses are almost totally reliant on wine tourism.

Eventually, a thriving industry of concomitant businesses creates a self-sustaining local economy based on tourism, food, wine and all the operators involved in purveying goods and services to those businesses. Well trained hospitality employees settle in these wine and food driven regional areas and very soon the roll on effect of infused fresh energy adds more pizzazz to the entire scene.

Here’s a short list of established Australian wine and food driven tourist areas: in New South Wales it’s the Hunter Valley, Orange district, Mudgee district and around Canberra and Yass. In South Australia it’s the Barossa, Clare and Eden Valleys, the Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra. In Western Australia it’s the Margaret River region and the Great Southern region around Denmark and Frankland. In Tasmania it’s the Tamar Valley and Piper’s Brook region near Launceston and the Upper Derwent River and Coal River Valley outside Hobart. Victoria’s list of wine focussed tourism regions is the longest in Australia: Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula, the Beechworth region, Macedon Ranges to Daylesford, the northern Otway slopes around Birregurra to Bannockburn near Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula, the King and Ovens Valley, Rutherglen, Milawa to Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley into the Strathbogie Ranges, West Gippsland around Leongatha and East Gippsland around Bairnsdale. Queensland’s Granite Ranges is the state’s best wine region and is slowly developing a more tantalising dining scene as a couple top end boutique hotels join the fun.

Tourism driven by wineries is worth over 1 billion dollars annually. Some state tourism authorities understand that fact and make use of it, most don’t.

South Australia’s tourism marketing campaign is largely driven by a food and wine focus, Victoria’s to a slightly lesser extent though in Victoria it’s the regions that drive the wine tourism marketing campaign, not the state tourism authority as a whole. Tasmania’s wine tourism is still in its nascent stage but improving as it grows in scale and reach. New South Wales and Queensland both lag behind in wine driven tourism marketing, seeing it more as a value add rather than a driver in and of itself. Western Australia’s wine tourism marketing is almost entirely focussed on the Margaret River region and suffers because of the lack of comprehensive coverage.

All states and territories tourism authorities are well advised to take note of the extraordinary value inherent in promoting wine and food tourism.

Travellers who love to eat and drink, discovering keys to local culture through interaction with people who care about what they eat and drink and the environment from which they source their livelihoods, spend more per capita than the average tourist does.

Tourism and travel are products that need selling for success. Selling requires marketing and advertising. How does this happen when tax payers pay the bill?

Tourism is big business. In some countries, Fiji, Costa Rica and The Bahamas for instance, it’s their number one earner, employing thousands of citizens while adding lustre to otherwise lacklustre GDPs. Tourism as a prime economic driver pops up in surprising places. Austria’s primary national income earner is tourism while in Canada tourism has grown into the country’s third largest industry, recently overtaking forestry amongst the top three of the country’s greatest sources of gross revenue.

To give you a good idea about the importance of a national tourism marketing campaign, the USA is finally getting its act together, drawing the fifty independent states under a single marketing umbrella, Brand USA. For the first time in its history the USA federal government is devoting funds to marketing the country as a single entity rather than a confusing mixed market of fifty competitors all crying out for attention.

Over one billion people are travelling this year, the largest market ever seen in human history. Every country wants a piece of the action. Every independent state and region in those countries wants their piece too.

So, how do national and state tourism authorities sell themselves to get their fair share of all this hot money-making action?

Not long ago, full page advertisements were placed in newspapers to woo customers. Television commercials played significant roles extolling the attractions of wherever is being promoted. Add radio spots and point-of-sale material (i.e. brochures and pamphlets) to the mix and you get a traditional marketing scheme.

That scheme isn’t working so well these days.

Why? The answer is two words: Social Media.

At the recent NTEEC (National Tourism & Events Excellence Conference) held at Melbourne’s MCG (itself a tourist drawcard—one night after the conference finished Liverpool played an exhibition match before a crowd of over 95,000 fans, many of them flown into Melbourne from the UK or interstate just to watch the game), heady discussions revolved around how marketing money may be better spent to attract customers.

National Tourism Organisations (NTOs), State Tourism Organisations (STOs) and Regional Tourism Organisations (RTOs) sent representatives from far and wide. Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs), funded primarily by national, state, local governments, also acquiring funds from chambers of commerce were there in spades, keen to gain information and advice about how the industry is changing. Universities with travel and tourism departments sent senior lecturers and professors to lend data from various research projects into customer behaviour and spending habits. Public relations firms sent representatives to gauge how much more money is forthcoming from the government funded marketing organisations.

Put simply, it was a pointy end of the plane gathering of industry leaders. These are the people who determine where the tourism marketing money will be spent, how it will be spent and how much will be spent. Big tourism businesses rely heavily on subsidised marketing projects which are largely funded by tax payers.  Billions of dollars of revenue is at stake, whole industries mark their bottom line profits based on numbers of interested visitors willing to spend their money on ‘tourism product’.

In a crowded global landscape packed with touristic attractions, how does any one destination sell itself effectively in order to secure its slice of the big revenue pie?

That was the question. Again the answer lay in those tricky two words: Social Media.

In Wollongong the week before, a different conference was held, Australia’s first SoMeT (Social Media Tourism). One of that conference’s organisers, Rodney Payne, co-founder and Executive Director of Think! Social Media gave a keynote speech at the NTEEC. Of all the talks I heard over two days of non-stop talking, his was the most illuminating simply because he presented his opinions about DMOs in very striking terms: when they get too involved with governments, they lose their drive for imaginative marketing.

Considering this was a confab of public/private/government funded organisations trying to be clever about marketing what are essentially privately owned businesses, Payne’s comment was at first startling as a critique of audience stakeholders.  His points became clearer as he cited significant case studies and progress reports from various international DMO marketing campaigns in which his business had been involved last year.

The news according to Payne is mixed good and bad. Payne says many DMOs will not survive because they’re not getting proven measurable results from government invested money. A lucky few will survive and perhaps see increased funding if their campaigns are deemed a success. Survival of the fittest, most clever and innovative summed up Payne’s assessment succinctly.

Another earth-shattering change was discussed, the changing role of traditional media. Statistics show that travellers are less inclined to seek guidance from a travel story published in a newspaper’s travel section or from a glossy spread in a magazine. The days of the travel writer’s ‘famil’ may be numbered while PR budgets are being cut and advertorial becomes increasingly superfluous.

Unfortunately, at the NTEEC there were no media spokespeople present to explain how many writers specialising in travel genre are adapting to changing circumstances, going online, blogging and growing their businesses into professional travel authorities whose independence is sound and reliably outspoken. To be honest, Naked Hungry Traveller is but one of many online publications busily differentiating themselves from traditional advertising influenced media outlets, namely newspapers and print magazines where an advertisement is often seen on a page near the story written by the hosted writer whose independent opinion is immediately at question because the visit was hosted at the DMOs expense, usually declared but often not.

User generated sites such as TripAdvisor, UrbanSpoon and Yelp were also discussed at length. How does any DMO control user generated content?

It can’t. It’s a free world.

DMOs can however try harder at generating their own content via social media and that was the crux of the conference. Clever engagement with visitors via social media is the key to a DMO’s successful marketing campaign.  

Some DMOs are very good at finessing social media. Others don’t get it at all and now face a challenging catch-up game just to maintain the status quo, or they face dissolution.

Opportunities exist for travel media to become more involved with DMO marketing campaigns, supplying authentic copy that engages with non-traditional audiences. Some DMOs are doing that already, inviting bloggers to review their products (i.e. free trip) as a way of attracting new audiences and hopefully increased business.

This is where we are now. Those stories are out there, impacts being measured and assessed. Was it worth spending valuable marketing money to host one blogger whose opinion can be bought over another whose opinion can’t? That’s just one question of many under discussion by NTOs, STOs and RTOs.

While user generated content sites are increasingly being called into account for a lack of proper moderation and openness to manipulation (competitor writes fraudulent reviews and posts them from numerous email accounts or one business engages dozens of friends and family members to post negative reviews about a competitor), professional independent media that engages with social media is apparently a safer bet for productive DMO spending.

Gobbledy-gook? After two days of discussion about how vast sums of money should be invested (the Australian Tourism Commission’s budget is over AUD$200 million for example, not all of it spent wisely: Where the Bloody Hell Are You? TVC comes to mind) to gain the most traction in a fickle marketplace increasingly reliant on social media (the really independent and therefore totally uncontrollable quotient in this potent mix). Social media is now the favoured platform on which the majority of consumers make a decision about where to go, how much to spend and why.

Naked Sources:

www.teeconference.com

www.facebook.com/teeconference

www.twitter.com/teeconference

www.linkedin.com/groups/Tourism-Events-Excellence-Conference-3889059

www.sometourism.com

www.facebook.com/SoMeTourism

www.twitter.com/SoMeTourism

Let’s state the obvious: driving conditions vary hugely from country to country.

Let’s support the obvious with some stereotypes: India’s is mostly bedlam on wheels. China’s is a work in progress with a mix of unskilled and wacky drivers in equal measures. In Russia, it’s a game of roulette. Wrong turn and you lose. In the USA drivers are often armed and dangerous.

In Europe, the spectrum of driver skills is broad and colourful. Germans are known as efficient, fast and phlegmatic, Italians as fast, inefficient and friendly, French as insolent, fast and efficient, Greeks as wayward, fast and friendly. The list goes on and on.

Australians are rarely mentioned when driving habits are listed on global ratings scales. As a fairly empty country of wide open and often deserted rural roads, it’s a nation where the descriptions ‘bad drivers’ and ‘too much traffic’ are mostly overlooked.

Not so anymore. According to recent mainstream news reports, the days of relaxed and mostly peaceful driving days are numbered in Australia.

For most of the year, I live in the world’s most liveable city.

Driving in the world’s most liveable city has turned a corner recently and hit a wall of anger. Yep, it appears that Melbourne’s drivers are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.  Our single remaining quality daily newspaper, the Melbourne Age, recently published a series of articles about ‘road rage’, a term not often heard in Australia’s commuting circles.

I read the series and immediately wondered how much truth there was to these claims of rampant road rage.

In Australia? Are they kidding me?

Actually, they weren’t kidding me at all.

Previously, I considered Australia to be so big and empty of cars that road rage complaints would be considered a tad grandiose.

And yet, only last week I was tailgating a silver haired driver whose head barely appeared above the steering wheel travelling 10 kilometres below the speed limit while hugging the fast lane. I also yelled several ‘F’ words at another driver who failed to indicate at a right turn therefore impeding my progress by at least 180 extra seconds while I waited at two consecutive red lights.

Why was I angry?

Other than an impatient nature, I had no logical reason. Just because I derive no pleasure from city driving doesn’t mean other drivers don’t. Not everyone considers an urban car trip as merely a quick way to get from point A to point B, as do I. Some people obviously like passing the time getting from A to B in a leisurely fashion and I try to allow consideration for that possibility, remote as it may be.

So, I tried to look at those two wayward drivers from their perspectives. Maybe one of them was from out of town and looking for a clear road sign. Perhaps the other was confused about the turn. Was it the correct street? No signs indicated it was, or not.

Then I understood how road rage in Australia has taken root and festered. Sure, our roads are more crowded than they were only ten years ago. In such a cashed up economy, everyone can afford to buy a car. So they do. Naturally, the roads are more crowded.

What hasn’t changed at all is the lack of clear signage. Tiny street signs, obscured behind trees, bent at weird angles because of vandalism or accident or hidden amongst other signs indicating ‘No Right Turn’ or ‘No Parking’ or ‘One Way’ or ‘Leaving Woop Woop Shire’ or ‘Police Are Checking Drink Drivers’ or a combination of all of the above, don’t stand out very well with such competition for attention. You can’t see the wood for all the trees, or the road.

Now I assume that most drivers in Australia are merely lost. I’m convinced that Australian signage is among the worst in the world. For a sophisticated Anglophone country, road signs in Australia are pathetically inadequate. Street names change abruptly for no apparent reason other than the fact that an indistinct local government boundary has been crossed. One major cross town street in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne changes its name five times in fewer than five kilometres, with almost no visible signs to indicate the changes. Pity the poor traveller looking for an address in this street.

Too many signs are posted on streetlight poles causing the most important one, the name of the cross street, to become nearly invisible. Making matters worse, the number of these often superfluous signs is growing. Local signs indicating that a public pool or school or library or rubbish dump or park, in addition to speed limits and traffic instructions all may share the same light pole. This is simply ridiculous.

Addresses are numbered randomly, once again according to indistinct local government boundaries. In a few kilometres along a major road, one side of the street may display businesses and houses with numbers ranging, for instance, from 1200 to 1600 while the other side has numbers ranging from 183 to 771, as much to my distress, I recently discovered while searching for a business on a very busy Melbourne street. Am I the only confused driver who’s relying on the proposition of a logical numbering system? Seeing a clearly posted address, 191, on one side, expecting to see 192 across the street but facing 1312 instead? Frustrated? Indeed I was.

Making a U-turn in a busy street attempting to find 192 many blocks now behind me became an impossible task. I couldn’t have withstood the road rage incurred.  I gave up visiting that business and luckily found a similar one further down the same road, a random shopping experience I didn’t expect to have. Most drivers aren’t so lucky.

Pity the poor traveller or country driver unfamiliar with Australian cities and their random methods of numbering dwellings and businesses. No wonder these wandering drivers searching for an address so often suffer insults and threats from other drivers coping with rampant road rage.

Or drivers are lost while window shopping, which many country drivers do when in the big city. Used to doing their shopping from the windows of their cars without traffic collecting in a queue behind them, bumpkins blown in to the big smoke for a big day out are prime road rage targets.

Small country towns still enjoy relatively empty roads. Country drivers in big cities tend to forget about other cars. They drive as they would at home, not worrying about other cars or pedestrians or time-poor commuters and everyone else.

Unfortunately, Australian urban road rage has become compounded by a third peak hour traffic rush, the dreaded school pick up time. Between 15:00 and 16:00 many roads are now clogged with large SUVs containing one parent and one or two children. Apparently, kids don’t walk to and from school anymore. Their little legs can’t handle the strain of walking combined with post school sports activities, dance classes, band practice and homework so they must be chauffeured from one venue to another. Helicopter parents are contributing much to road rage. Double parking their large SUVs on busy roads outside school gates while waiting for little Justin or Caitlin is part of daily Australian life nowadays. Who cares if they block traffic for thirty minutes or so?

Years of comparatively stress-free driving in Australia and abroad have cushioned me from the effects of road rage and I’d like to maintain that finely tuned equilibrium.

My preference is for less stress in life so I’ve devised a personalised sure-fire solution to this road rage problem.

I avoid driving between 15:00 and 16:00 in order to reduce recurrence of road rage; parent chauffeuring period annoys me.

Actually, I avoid driving between 07:00 and 11:30, from 12:00 until 14:45 and from 16:00 until 20:00 as well.

This schedule leaves me with two relatively stress free daylight driving gaps of between 11:30 until 12:00 and 14:45 until 15:00, a whole 45 minutes of expletive free drive time.

Here’s how it works: 07:00 until 09:30 is morning peak hour and best avoided so harried and impatient commuters can get to work on time and I don’t compete with them for road space. From 09:30 until 11:30 seniors take to the streets en masse to do their shopping and socialising. I learned long ago to avoid getting stuck behind a car driven by someone wearing a white hat. The lawn bowls club rush for getting to the match on time takes up the hours between 09:30 until 11:30. Between 12:00 and 14:45 is the general lunch rush when the roads are packed with unhurried shoppers (read lost), delivery vans, postal trucks, construction semi-trailers, council bin collectors, hard rubbish removalists, road maintenance vehicles and people who drive to lunch. From 15:00 until 16:00 is the dreaded pick-up the kids rush followed immediately by the evening peak which now lasts until at least 20:00.

I have two clear windows of stress reduced drive-time opportunity: 11:30 until 12:00 and from 14:45 until 15:00, which adds up to 45 minutes of passive-aggressive driving liberty and makes me fairly happy.

By the way, from 20:00 until 07:00, Australian city roads are comparatively empty apart from drunks and long distance truckers. Contrast this with Australian country roads which between dusk and dawn are crowded with roaming wildlife ranging in size from tiny endangered possums to huge camels and buffalos.

Driving at night in country Australia is a fraught-with-danger experience. Kangaroos do not bounce off windscreens. They obliterate them.

Australian road rage? C’mon, tell them you’re laughing.

Naked Facts:

The Melbourne Age’s series of road rage stories begin here: http://theage.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/retaliation-against-selfish-drivers-just-not-worth-it-20130320-2gezs.html

For a better understanding of Australia’s road rules see: www.ntc.gov.au


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