Ashgabat Traffic Challenges

Traffic in Ashgabat always presents a range of troubles or, more charitably, challenges. In addition to the widespread practices of driving with your car centered on the broken white line (it's obviously there to help those who have a hard time driving straight) and driving roundabout by going immediately into the inside land and exiting from the inside lane (yes, across 2, 3 or even 4 lanes of traffic), there are random road closures and the occasional non-functioning traffic light to deal with.

Last week, I decided to take a slightly alternate route to work. It's still a major road, just not the most direct one from the housing compound to the embassy. The most direct route has been complicated recently by construction that has closed down a feeder road, so there are more cars than usual. Anyway, the alternate major road I took has a couple of major intersections that are often the source of traffic back-ups. When I took this road, one of the traffic signals at one of the major intersections was not working—completely without power. Unlike in the U.S., there is apparently no established protocol for a non-regulated intersection beyond, "Creep forward until you have to stop due to another car in the intersection and hope no one plows into you." Well, I was following the established Turkmen protocol (for fear of getting rear-ended) and saw four cars from the four different roads get to the middle of the intersection at about the same time. No accident, but the start of some serious gridlock (each of the roads is three marked lanes each direction, so that translates into four or five cars across). So, I put on my hazard lights, get out of my car (which was, by this point, entirely in the intersection) and start directing traffic. It's harder than it looks. Most people went along with it, and yes, most people looked at me like I was crazy, but the logjam disappeared to the point that my car was blocking perpendicular traffic. I hopped back in and drove off.

Today, on the way in to work, my path was clear. Almost completely clear because the president was either returning from or going somewhere along the main highway that runs by the highway. I turned into the roundabout that takes you on the main road to the embassy and...saw all the cars backed up into the roundabout, up the off ramp on the other side and down one of the major roads in Ashgabat. The cars were backed up on this road for what would be the equivalent of at least two city blocks, if not more. All this to make sure that the president had smooth sailing wherever he was going, never mind the complications for the rest of us. Good thing I was heading away from it!