driving in egypt

I think it would be inaccurate to say that drivers in Egypt are maliciously aggressive. I am a very aggressive driver. I drive too fast, I tailgate, I cut people off, on occasion I roll the window down and do some shouting. I'm the first to admit that when behind the wheel, I'm a raging bitchmachine.

Drivers in Egypt exude a kind of benevolent aggression. There's yelling, and fist shaking on occassion, but no one really seems to take it to heart. No one gets real red in the face.

HOWEVER, their manner of driving is one of the most insanely terrifying spectacles I've yet to encounter in my lifetime. And it's not just one asshole who's driving like a maniac, it's a COUNTRY of assholes driving like maniacs. In fact, I think I should put "driving" in quotes to really convey how loosely this style of "driving" resembles what we call driving in the US.

There is no concept of lanes, anywhere. It's just a swarming mass of cars constantly weaseling in front of each other, sometimes 3 across sometimes 5 across... it's nuts. NUTS. In addition, when a small space opens up in front of the "car pack" (kind of like a wolf pack, only way more scary), EVERY car floors it to fill the hole, and stops just short of total destruction.

If you think that's bad, try CROSSING the street. There are really no crosswalks (ok maybe a few, but those are located in places where you don't even really need them), and there are defintely none bisecting the biggest, most crowded roads. It's like a live action game of Frogger with no extra lives. You basically just have to take a deep breath and step into swiftly moving traffic, hoping that you won't get flattened by the public buses that are packed like sardines, or the men (and babies, BABIES) on motorbikes with no helmets (ever, even on the BABIES).

It's therefore very suprising to me that I have not been involved in any accidents, I haven't even seen anyone else get into an accident. This leads me to believe that Islam must be the one true path to God, because someone must be protecting Egyptians from killing each other regularly with their automobiles.

Inshahallah.

I don't really have any good pictures to illustrate this phenomenon... this is the only real "driving" picture I have, of a bunch of camels in front of our taxi driver's cab. He got really super excited and ordered me to take a picture, and then started imitating camel noises. EVERY time he saw a camel he would get excited, pull the cab over and make me take a picture. It was pretty funny.