If you’re cruising down Thika Road on a breezy Saturday, minding your business and letting Tabu Ley’s vocals soothe your soul, you’re already making a mistake. You’ve forgotten where you are. In this city, peace is just a temporary lapse in the chaos, usually interrupted by three tons of Japanese engineering and a driver with the IQ of a lukewarm Tusker.
Enter the black Toyota Prado. It doesn’t just “lane change.” It violently careens into your personal space, nearly clipping your side mirror, before hurtling toward the horizon like it’s carrying the cure for poverty. It isn’t. It’s usually carrying a 27-year-old from a shared apartment in Mwihoko who runs a dubious forex scam and thinks a sunroof makes him untouchable.
Welcome to the era of the Prado driver, a brash, loud, and hopelessly insecure character. These people have turned our highways into a Grand Prix for the mediocre. Armed with the childish belief that they are driving the official “Mheshimiwa” machine, they treat traffic laws like mere suggestions for the “peasants” in Vitzs and Proboxes.
They don’t just drive; they bully. They tailgate, they honk with a hysterical sense of urgency, and they squeeze into gaps that don’t exist. And heaven forbid you try to call them out. The moment you honk back, you’re met with a barrage of toxic slurs. You’ll be reminded of your poverty, your mother’s lineage will be questioned, and you’ll be dared to take the matter to “the highest authorities.” It’s the same desperate need for unearned status we see in the people chasing fake honorary degrees, it’s all a facade, a hollow shell of importance built on a car loan they can barely service.
Unlike the Subaru boys, who are just a fleeting, noisy nuisance that eventually disappears into a cloud of exhaust, the Prado driver lingers. He wants you to see him. He wants to be felt. He’ll park his “soulless gang” of SUVs at weddings and funerals, waiting for the moment he can whip up a cloud of village dust and remind everyone that he’s “made it.”
The irony, of course, usually ends up in a ditch. Drive past any major highway accident and there’s a high chance you’ll see one of these “kings of the road” upside down, wheels spinning uselessly toward the sky. It’s a self-engineered Armageddon, the natural
They’ll end their day at a “Park and Chill” in Naivasha or Tigoni, boot flung open, blaring mediocre music while sipping fake Cognac and struggling to capture the “perfect sunset” on an iPhone they’re still paying for. By 10 PM, they’re back on the road, terrorizing motorists as they rush to a club in Kilimani just to sit there looking bored.
Nairobi is a jungle, but the Prado driver is the most exhausting predator in it. If you see those strobe lights flashing in your rearview mirror, don’t be fooled, it’s not a government official. It’s just another charlatan with a big car and a small mind. Move over and let them rush toward their own ruin. It’s the only thing they’re actually good at.