Tactical Driving Through Kabul and Surrounding Areas

While at the conference this week, I had the opportunity to drive one of the vehicles belonging to the CSTC-A lawyers. Don’t worry about the acronym, just know they’re a different group of lawyers I work with and who assisted in the conference.

I’ve driven our humvees quite a bit but driving their vehicles was a new experience. They’re lighter than ours and handle better. However, they don’t take the potholes, rocks and awful roads as well as the humvee's.

I was the second vehicle since I didn’t know how to get to several of the destinations where we were going. The lead driver was bound and determined to “lose me.” He kept cutting in and out of traffic. My hand never left the stick-shift as I was constantly speeding up or slamming on my brakes as we worked our way through traffic. There were some close calls where I almost “lost” the side mirrors on my vehicle as I had to get pretty close to the vehicles around me. There’s nothing quite like cutting off an over-loaded jingle truck or forcing a taxi full of people off the road just so you can stay caught up with the lead vehicle. There were even a few times when I was driving into on-coming traffic for a couple of reasons; (1) the road was in better condition in the other lane, (2) I had to avoid being hit by vehicles merging into my lane, (3) had to pass slower moving vehicles in my own lane.

Besides all the mechanical obstructions in the road there are the flesh and blood obstacles. Little kids were everywhere. When we got stuck in traffic one little girl came up to the lead vehicle, in the middle of a huge traffic jam, asking for candy. Then there are the kids and people who will just walk out into traffic without really looking. It’s a little unnerving driving when there are so many people on the side of the road who have no concern for their own safety.

I knew I was driving well when the front seat passenger reached up and grabbed the handle to brace for possible impact and the backseat passenger said “Oh Daddy.”

My Orem police officers will have a hey-day with me when I get back if I don’t lose some of these bad driving habits.

Oh, but it's so much fun!!!


Here's a picture of a jingle truck my friend Paul sent me. BestBuy finally replaced my camera, after a long drawn-out struggle - thanks to my wonderful wife for taking care of that. Now I'll be able to include pictures that I've actually taken.