KABUL, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Driving might be a way of enjoying life, showing off one's status or just making it in other cities of the world.
But in the Afghan capital of Kabul, driving is not fun; it can bore you to death.
"I have spent an hour waiting for the traffic to move and my passenger could miss his appointment at the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital," taxi driver Ghulam Sakhi complained.
He told Xinhua that the distance from Gul Bahar Center, a shopping mall where he picked up his passenger, to the hospital is only a three-minute drive but because of the traffic congestion, it took him more than a hour to make it.
The battered main roads are overwhelmed by some 500,000 cars, majority of them second-hand. This has largely contributed to the daily traffic jam in Kabul.
Kabul's population has swollen from one million a decade ago to more than four million now.
The city does not have flyovers, subway or elevated railway that are found in most cities in order to ease the traffic problem.
The traffic jam is worsened when the police erect concrete barriers on some streets to allow the VIP cars to pass, including those of international agencies with heavy security escorts.
Kabul is home to the headquarters of 100,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), foreign diplomatic missions and government departments.
"We are fed up with so many road blockades and so many traffic jam," Sakhi said.
To escape the traffic jam, ordinary Kabul residents and office workers are forced to walk instead of riding vehicles.
"Some three years ago I was taking an elderly patient to Wazir Akbar Khan hospital in downtown Kabul but after wasting around an hour on the road the patient's son paid me and just carried his father to the hospital,"Sakhi said.
"It is a very tiring and boring job to drive on Kabul's shabby roads but I have no choice but to drive and earn a living,"Ahmad Fawad, another taxi driver, said.
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