Taxis

Traffic in Cairo, and in particular taxis in Cairo, are absurd. The downright ridiculousness of the commuting situation is tough to describe, you probably have to see it for yourself. I am going to try anyway because it is so remarkable. I haven't seen the subway yet (I'm not looking forward to it), but all above ground transport is beyond anything you would EVER see in America. 

Cairo redefines any standard idea of distance between cars. Today I walked out of an office building, and to get where I was going next, took a right. The two cars parked on the sidewalk were so close to the building, each other, and the cars on the street, which were in turn parallel parked so close to each other, that I had to retrace my path fifty or sixty yards the other direction past the door of the office building. I am not exaggerating, every car was within an inch of something else, making this wall of cars impassible without climbing on hoods. This phenomenon is not unique to parked cars either. If a truck is in the left side of the left lane, and a car is in the middle to right side of the right lane, lane-line be damned, you have to drive through. Furthermore, if the two cars in front of you are not on the outside of their respective lanes, you honk at them so you can pass between them. I can't tell you the number of times I have been close enough to slap the driver of the car next to me in the face.

The commuting is just silly. People hop in and out of moving buses. Dozens of people wait around on the side of the highway, I'm not entirely sure for what or whom. Every now and then a fifteen passenger van crammed with twenty five people pulls over and picks a few up. The urban sprawl ends abruptly at the desert, which means there is no suburbia, and therefore no logical commuting patterns, which means that there can be a stopped dead traffic jam anytime, anywhere (and there are, always, everywhere). The cars are small, which is good, but old, which is bad. Everything is one of those tiny Peugeots or Renaults or Fiats from 1970's. People drive like maniacs, and there are literally neither stoplights nor crosswalks. Crossing the street is like a game of frogger (including the cars not slowing down), which is terrifying for pedestrians, as well as automobile passengers, and gets especially hairy because the distance between lanes is just a few inches. The only reason it (sort of) works is because cars don't drive faster than 30 mph. Sadly, the reason for the slow speed is because most of the cars cannot go any faster, because they are too old. 

Taxis are another story in and of themselves. They recently passed a law saying that in two years, all taxis over 20 years old need to be off the roads. By my count, this will affect 95% of cabs. You tell the driver where you want to go, and then the journey is harrowing. The driver honks his horn constantly (literally every six seconds), which is annoying, but at the same time is crucial for narrowly avoiding fender-benders. The horn thing is a little weird, though. Everyone does it, often when there is no one around. They use it with the "hey look at me so I don't have to slow down or change direction" mentality. Then comes the fare. There is no meter, and it is not pre-decided. You can haggle, but mostly you throw whatever you think the driver deserves at him, he acts mad, and you get out of the car. Absurd. 

This whole traffic scenario is pretty indicative of the Egyptian way of life. Human health and public safety are not taken into account, and mostly everything is informal, if not half-assed. It is strange, but no one here seems to think it as being odd. It's just another vast cultural difference that makes Cairo unique.