Traffic

Life in Cairo is challenging at times, especially at rush hour. I am not sure these photos do the chaotic traffic justice. Often the car in the far right lane wants to turn left across three or four lanes of traffic and just sticks his nose into the next lane until he has accomplished his goal.

Even within the chaos there does emerge an order--sort of. Cars do manage to negotiate intersectionseven though everyone is going every which way; pedestrians do manage to get across the street and everyone does, somehow, manage to make in home in time for dinner. This pedestrian is going to try to cross the street. He is waiting for a lull in traffic and will dash across to the other side. Look carefully and you can see three black and white taxis in this photo. Black and whites are all over Cairo. They are black cars with the side fenders painted white. They all have luggage racks. They are well used, often over 20 years old,and held together with bubble gum and bailing wire, as the saying goes. Yet they provide a needed and inexpensive service. We use them all the time to go everywhere around town.

No traffic light, just cars maneuvering in all directions--the most aggressive creating the lanes and everyone follows behind, until the next aggressive one changes the direction of the flow.

The sidewalks are hazzardous. Cars park wherever they can, often on the sidewalks, making them almost impassable. So we walk in the street and get tooted at.

See the car parked on the sidewalk? This is across the street from us.

The chair is holding a spot for someone who lives in the building. The other cars are parked in their usual spots--even the one on the sidewalk. You can see why one ends up walking in the street.

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There is a system of horn blowing here. If people are walking in the street you tap the horn to let them know not to wander out into traffic, because the cars do not stop for pedestrians. They slow down, but do not like to stop. I haven't seen anyone hit, but I have seen close calls. Often headlights are not used at night. If you are crossing the street, at night you need to look carefully because cars seem to come quickly at night, especially with no lights on. They see you. They flick their lights and give the little tap on the horn to warn you.

Then there is the horn honking when you are behind someone that is not going fast enough. The taxis honk a lot because they are always in a hurry and there are lots of them so there is lots of taxi honking. That honk is a little longer, and often accompanied by flicking the headlights.

There is the stuck-in-traffic honk. It is more of a laying on the horn for a second or two to let everyone else stuck in the same traffic know how upset you are about being stuck in this miserable traffic jam.

There are the short da-dit-da-dit honks to let traffic on either side of you know that you are going to fit in between the cars even though there is no lane there--but there is a smiggen of room--just enough for you to fit your vehicle in between the cars that are in the proper lanes. So now you have created a new lane and hordes fill in behind you. The three lane road has now become a four lane road, soon to be a six lane road.

There is the honk that is used when you are cruising through a red light. They are decorative here, but require a warning that you are ignoring them. So intersections become quite noisy, especially the ones that have those decorative traffic lights. Noone obeys a traffic light unless there is a traffic cop in the intersection -- noone wants to hit the traffic cop because he is aligned with the military and interaction with the military is to be avoided if at all possible. Intersections are a challenge. Traffic flowing nicely in one direction can get snarled up as an aggressive type sticks his nose out into the crossing traffic and forces one lane after another to stop so he can get across. Soon traffic is flowing in the new direction as other cars follow the aggressive one. This continues for a short while until another aggressive type forces traffic to flow in the original direction again. Intersections are fun to watch from a distance.

Then there are the honks that are used just to let you know that -I am next to you and not to try anything funny, like creating a new lane, because I am here and I won't let you do it.

Our bus honks a lot. It is mostly the -I am here honk--because he doesn't want anyone plowing into the side of his beautiful clean bus. We have had some close calls, but no scrapes yet. I think it is a matter of time, though, because the driving habits of the Egyptians are worse than the Italians or the Mexicans.

Italian drivers are angelic and well mannered compared to the Egyptians. Yet I see very few accidents. Those that do happen do not seem to be too serious--nobody gets going fast enough in Cairo to have too serious an accident. But when an accident does happen it snarls things up miserably. These roads are not well designed and traffic does not flow smoothly unless it is 4:00 am. So accidents foul things up because nobody pulls to the side--they just stop and everything comes to a standstill until a traffic cop comes along and gets things moving again. Traffic cops, unlike traffic lights, are obeyed.

Another traffic snafu is the double parking. Often in shopping districts you see double lines of cars parked and double parked. It is a joke really, because it is always the inside person that wants to leave first, so they get into their car and lay on the horn until someone comes out and moves the other car. Another of those unwritten rules. Everyone seems to know whose car needs moving and somehow it gets moved. I don't know how they figure it out when everyone is inside some store or other shopping just whose car needs moving, but someone comes running up and moves it. Then they disappear again.

The white car is double parked at the corner. You can see other cars in the foreground double parked as well. As you might expect, it ca cause a great deal of confusion. Yet everyone seems to take it in stride.

It is hard to tell from this photo, but the dark car that appears to be driving through the intersection is actually parked there. Cars on the other side of the street are double parked, reducing traffic flow to one lane.

Lots of chaos, but out of all that chaos comes some sort of order. Once you figure out what the rules are or, more often, are not, then you are fine. Lots--millions in fact--drive here, and manage to get around. Millions more use public transportation and yet more use transportation provided by their employer--like us. The school runs a whole fleet of busses to pick up kids all over Cairo and more busses to pick up only teachers. There are over 120 teachers at the school so it is a very nice service. I just walk a block and meet my bus.

We have found the traffic congestion interesting, to say the least. It is fun to just sit at one of the corner cafes and just watch the traffic at the corner negotiate their way around, and through the intersection.