There isn’t much right with South Africa’s roads.

Take the Jan Smuts Avenue, for instance. It snakes through the heart of Johannesburg from Parktown on the very edge of town, to the dusty wastelands of the godforsaken and heathen Randburg in the north. Along the way, it passes through important suburban locations like Hyde Park, Craighall, and my doorstep.

You’d think, therefore, that the people who design this road would put some intelligent thought into it. You’d be dead wrong. Look at that bit of Jan Smuts that snakes up south past the Westcliff Hotel and then hits the M1 in Parktown: it goes from being a dual lane on the southbound bit, begins to encompass a third lane and then changes its mind halfway through and stays as a dual-lane. All of this happens just as you’re about to hit the crest of the hill, and navigate a tricky bend (if you, like me, are wont to hit that bend at a faster pace than is strictly necessary). And just to add a bit of pointless eccentricity, there’s usually a gigantic pothole somewhere in the mix there. Not very clever, that.

There isn’t much right with South Africa’s road users, in fact. I come from KwaZulu Natal, an area of this country not known for its tidy driving. Then I moved to Johannesburg, where I discovered that it is perfectly legal to hog the fast lane if you’re in a Jaguar X-Type. And wear colourful suspenders. When Bheki “Not Deputy Jesus Christ Cele was the Oberstgruppenführer of Transport in KZN, he invested actual money so that someone could paint a funny sign that was put on the N2, communicating the urgent and immediate danger of rough police treatment should anyone hog the right lane. This progressive thinking has apparently not come to Joburg yet.

Then there is the wanton flaunting of the red robot rule that happens everywhere in Joburg. My K53 driver’s licence instructor told me to wait until all of the red signal was gone before crossing the street. I imagine that is what everyone was told too. A lot of people wait until two seconds of red robot are left, and then elect to jump the light. Yes, I know that it’s yellow for the cross traffic. But the light on this side of the stop is red. It’s not that hard, Johannesburg.

It’s not just taxis that do this – I’ve seen a soccer mum in a grey Audi Q7 do it. I’ve seen businessmen in BMWs do it. These people all deserve the grisly death that they are courting.

But there’s one thing which we get right at the bottom of Africa. Our roads are of a comfortable width. You don’t realise how important that is until you see the roads in Switzerland. I only just came back from Zurich. Now, it is an established scientific fact that the Swiss hate the motor vehicle. It’s a wonder that they don’t simply ride their cows to work each morning (maybe it is because the methane gas in the cow farts would mean that this medieval form of transport would fall foul of the greenhouse gas tax).

One of the ways in which the Swiss display their bile-filled abhorrence of civilisation is by making roads that are impossible to drive fast on. A fast road ticks several very important boxes: it has an even surface, and you can see what’s happening around you so you can take evasive action should something happen when you’re belting along at 203 kilometres per hour. Switzerland deliberately chose to ignore the second criterion. Their roads are narrow, twisty and treacherous, and that’s just the outer-city bits of road. Their in-town roads are as narrow as train tracks. They also don’t cut the grass back from the sides of the road, meaning that should you choose to think that you’re Mika Häkkinen, you’re always clenching your butt cheeks in anticipation of Hansel and Gretel suddenly emerging from the undergrowth a few metres in front of your speeding car.

In America (New York, to be precise), they forgo smooth roads altogether. Insurance people and car mechanics must make a roaring trade there.

This is one of those little things that make me appreciate being back in South Africa. Our roads are wide.