I've been driving around Africa for almost three years now, and every time I go into a city I can't help but think along the same lines as this article.

I see tens of thousands of vehicles belching huge clouds of black smoke, idling for hours at a time with nobody inside, or stuck in soul crushing traffic. Just the other day it took a hour to drive five miles with tens of thousands of vehicles packed in.

It's also really easy to see the direct environmental impact - any place that does oil changes or repairs tires is surrounded by a huge patch of jet black earth where the waste products are simply tossed on the ground. Used tires are piled high, and crashed or burnt out vehicles commonly litter the roadside. In the first world we hide all of that from sight, sometimes I think it's better to have it out in the open so we can be more aware of what is really going on.