Let’s start with a disclaimer.
There’s no way to actually avoid traffic in Lagos. The best you can do is reduce it to a minimum by not leaving your house.
However, with the right decisions and actions, you can leave your house frequently and still avoid a decent amount of traffic in Lagos. How would you do it? That’s why you’re here, let the experts show you how.
Utilize Sundays
Sundays are the best days to go out in Lagos. There are fewer cars on the road, everyone is resting and preparing for the gruelling Monday morning hustle. Sundays are probably the only days that you can go from Ajah to Lekki in one hour🌚.
Use Google Maps
Apart from the occasional misdirection where it lands you in front of the Atlantic or in the middle of a strange compound, Google Maps is usually accurate most of the time.
With the maps, you can tell the traffic congestion on your route and if you should consider other routes or just sit back and wait out the traffic.
Listen To Traffic Radio
Traffic Radio is an underrated hack to avoid traffic jams in Lagos. The updates are usually real-time and more accurate than what the maps would show you. You also get to listen to sweet radio jams while at it. The next time you’re about to leave your house/office, you should definitely tune in to the traffic radio.
Check The Weather
It is quite hard to explain but rain and traffic seem to go together in Lagos. The combination is as natural as bread and butter. If you’re about to go out and it starts raining, just rained or is about to rain, then you would probably encounter traffic in your movement.
Find Remote Opportunities
As I said earlier, the best way to avoid traffic is to stay in your house. If you work remotely, there would be almost no need for you to go out in the morning on weekdays.
If you can, you should negotiate more flexible hours with your employer. That way, you can spend less time commuting and more time actually doing the work. If your employer doesn’t agree, you know what to do😉.
Use Eden Life
Even if you work remotely, you still have to sort out food by either going shopping in the market or buying food from a restaurant. Why not automate that service?
You stay in your house and avoid traffic while your favourite meals are delivered to you, your dirty clothes are picked and brought back clean and a cleaner comes to your house, cleans and leaves. Try it out here.
Break Your Journey
A lot of people who live in places that are far away from their office location use this hack to limit the amount of traffic that they tackle weekly. They either stay back at work till night or they rent a small accommodation close to work where they stay on weekdays and then go home on the weekends.
Avoiding traffic in Lagos is quite impossible. If you employ all tricks, you get to face less traffic and this makes living in Lagos a little bit more bearable.
We hold a biweekly Twitter Space on Saturday mornings called Hacking Lagos to talk about Lagos and how you can get the best from life in the city that never sleeps. Don’t miss it.