The Bike Riders Crash, Everything Stops, Then Everything Continues

Yesterday in Freetown, I was crawling along in my car like a sensible person who actually wants to see tomorrow. The two-lane road was doing its usual thing, pretending to have rules while everybody ignored them. I was driving extra slowly because I know this city too well. At any moment, an okada (bike rider) can pop out like a jack-in-the-box, or one of those kekes (tricycles) can decide the middle of the junction is the perfect place for a U-turn. So I kept my eyes wide open, ready for anything.

I had just squeezed through that crazy Spiderweb Junction at Dwarzark, the one that feels like somebody dropped three roads on top of each other, looked at the mess, and said: “Good luck, everyone.” Ahead of me was the stretch going toward New England. Right in the middle sat this gentleman in a wheelchair, begging from drivers with the patience of a man who had accepted his fate. Poor fellow had shifted himself a bit to make space for the madness around him. Not far beyond, a policeman was actually being useful, escorting an old woman across the zebra crossing like he was delivering something precious. Drivers here treat zebra crossings like optional decorations, like somebody painted white lines on the road just to confuse them, so I gave the policeman a quiet mental round of applause for even trying.

Then came the real show. In front of me was the usual Freetown circus: a thick soup of people on foot trying to cross while cars, bikes, and kekes all fought for the same slice of tar. Everybody was making eye contact like they were playing a very serious, very underpaid staring game. “You go.” “No, you go.” “Fine, I go first, but I am not responsible for what happens next.” Pure beautiful chaos, but somehow, by some miracle that no traffic engineer has ever been able to explain, it usually works out.

Suddenly… BANG!

Right in front of my bonnet, two okada riders slammed into each other like they had a long-standing debt to settle. The sound hit so close I almost felt it rearranging my back teeth. For a full second, my brain just went quiet. Empty. Offline. I could not even tell which direction they had come from. One moment, the road looked passable; the next moment, two grown men on motorbikes were having a very loud, very physical metal-on-metal argument centimeters from my front bumper.

stopped gently, and I kept my face calm. The first thing I did was check the door locks. Not because I had touched anybody, I had not even grazed the dust on their tyres, but because I know exactly how these things go in Freetown. Within seconds, other okada riders started arriving from every direction like bees who had received a group text. These same men who ride like the road is their personal property and traffic laws are a foreign language suddenly transform into a tight brotherhood when one of their own is involved. If a car is anywhere near the scene, they become lawyers, judges, witnesses, and angry uncles all at once. So I locked my doors, sat straight, and minded my business with great discipline.

The policeman standing nearby looked at the scene the way a man looks at rain in the middle of a Monday he did not ask for.

“Another one,” his whole face said.

He did not rush. He did not panic. He adjusted his cap slowly. This was clearly just Friday for him, maybe not even an interesting Friday.

Both riders, thank God, had helmets on. They peeled themselves off the ground with the casual dignity of men who had simply tripped over a loose tile, not two people who had just crashed at full okada speed in front of a small crowd. And what was the very first thing they did? Not to check their passengers. Not check their own legs, their own wrists, their own beating hearts. No. They went straight to their bikes. Bending, squinting, turning the machines this way and that, running their fingers along the frames with the concentration of surgeons and the tenderness of fathers. The two women who had been riding pillion were still sitting on the fallen bikes, looking into the middle distance with the expression of people who were quietly reconsidering several life decisions. Their drivers, meanwhile, were deeply concerned about whether the exhaust pipe had retained its self-respect.

Luckily, nothing was badly broken. No crumpled metal, no snapped mirrors, no blood on the tar. The riders exchanged a few sharp words, the kind that travel fast and carry meaning even when you cannot hear them clearly, then kicked their engines back to life. Without so much as a glance behind them, they revved up and disappeared into traffic like the whole episode had been a minor interruption, a small commercial break in an otherwise ordinary commute.

The two women stood there blinking in the sun, then looked around, gathered themselves, and started flagging down another okada, like this was simply how journeys sometimes go.

The little crowd that had gathered dissolved in seconds, the way Freetown crowds always do, there one moment and gone the next, leaving no trace. The gentleman in the wheelchair went back to his work. The old woman had long since crossed and continued on her way. The policeman scratched the back of his neck once, slowly, then returned to whatever quiet thoughts he had been having before all the excitement arrived uninvited.

And just like that, the road exhaled. Horns started again, engines revved, and people resumed their dashes across the tarmac like a film that had been briefly paused, now playing again at full volume.

I sat there for a moment, drew in a long breath, let it out even longer, and shook my head the way you shake it when the world reminds you it does not need your permission to be exactly what it is.

Then I continued toward New England, driving even slower, smiling to myself at the whole absurd, warm, maddening theatre of it.

Because if you do not laugh at Freetown traffic, it will make you cry. Or crash. Or, knowing this city, probably both at the same time.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Bongolistically, Mallam O.