We spent a lot of time joking and laughing about our driving adventures in Nepal: the incredibly poor conditions of the roads, and how insanely unsafe most of the drivers are. If you’ve been following our blog, you’ve already heard some examples about our terrifying experiences in Bara and Rolpa. And the single-lane, curvy mountain road to Dolakha, with gaping ditches and cracks in multiple areas where a small river was running across the pavement? Don’t even get me started. After we got back, it took me some time to adjust to driving where you actually have to stay in a lane and where people use their turn signals to turn, not to indicate that it’s OK to pass them.

But all jokes aside, the terrible conditions of the roads have many more serious implications for Nepal. First of all, road accidents have claimed the lives of more people in Nepal than the entire ten years of civil war. There are varying statistics, but it seems that about 1000 people are killed in road accidents in Nepal every year – that averages out to about three people each day. Even when the accidents don’t result in death, the medical bills and potential loss of employment and income must have a staggering impact on this already poverty-stricken country. The total cost – human, social, and economic – of this issue is enormous.

We saw some evidence of at least a weak effort to address this problem: on the road to Dolakha, we were laughing at signs with safety slogans like “Speed thrills, but kills” and “Speed is a five letter word – and so is death” (I wonder if the Nepali translations come out sounding a little better?). But beyond these rather feeble efforts, with all the other problems the country faces (compounded by a simple lack of funds to make meaningful changes), how can this issue even compete for attention?

Furthermore, the difficulty of traversing many roads and even the complete lack of roads in some areas means that parts of the country remain extremely isolated, cut off from communication and what aid and development the government has to offer. As the government tries to establish itself and its power over the country, and hopefully try to improve the lives of its people, I imagine they will find themselves thwarted by this fairly basic yet incredibly pervasive problem. We thought Rolpa was disconnected from Kathmandu, but at least we could get to Rolpa from the capital: what about the villages where even such poor roads simply don’t exist?

While the poor roads may seem like the least of worries in Nepal, it’s actually a very daunting problem. And after spending just two weeks travelling on these roads, it certainly isn’t a problem that I would be eager to tackle.