Road Infrastructure and Urban/Rural Driving
This domain asks you to adjust to the road you are on: dense Nouakchott traffic with roundabouts, markets and pedestrians, or an unlit rural route nationale with sand shoulders, livestock crossings and wadi flooding.
In town
Expect one-way systems, bus and taxi stopping areas, roundabouts with poorly lit central islands, and pedestrians stepping out between parked cars. Use the correct lane early, keep junctions clear when queuing, park only where permitted and check for two-wheelers before opening a door. In 30 km/h zones near schools and markets, the limit is a ceiling, not a target.
Outside town
Rural carriageways are often single, unlit and edged with soft sand. Keep off the shoulder - it collapses under a wheel and pulls you off the road. Sand drifts across the tarmac at night, so reduce speed so you can stop inside your lit view. Wadi crossings flood fast in the rainy season: never drive into water of unknown depth. Level crossings may be unsignalled or unguarded; slow, look both ways and stop if a train is coming. Long vehicles and overloaded trucks need far more room, so pass decisively or not at all.
Worked example
At night on an unlit route nationale, a pale band of sand crosses the road at the edge of your headlights. Reasoning: braking hard on sand causes a skid, and swerving into the shoulder is worse. You ease off the throttle before the patch, keep the wheel straight, cross it gently at reduced speed, and only then resume - having already lowered your speed so that the drift was inside your stopping distance.
Traps that cost marks
Braking sharply on a sand patch; using the soft shoulder to let a truck pass; driving into flood water without knowing the depth; and treating an unguarded crossing as if trains only run by day.