CAIRO: In a city as big and busy as Cairo, a daily commute is simply a nightmare.
From lorries ramming into smaller cars, to pedestrians suddenly stepping into the road, a journey in Cairo on a busy day can seem like navigating through hell.
To survive on Egypt’s streets, one must abide by an unwritten set of driving laws to which local drivers have accustomed themselves.
Your mission is not only to avoid mistakes, but most importantly watch out for errors by others.
Drivers must firstly avoid messing with big vehicles. Trucks and public buses own the road in Egypt and pay little regard to the smaller vehicles around them. Taxis, microbuses and tuk-tuk drivers must also be avoided as they operate under a whole different set of rules.
And despite it being 2018, don’t be surprised to find yourself stuck behind decrepit carts drawn by horses or donkeys.
Egypt’s roads often lack marked lanes. Even when the tarmac does have markings, it is nearly impossible to stick to them because other drivers force you to pull in to one side so they can perform their suicidal overtaking maneuvers.
In Cairo’s famous traffic jams, there is no room for manners. Drivers who manage to get their car slightly in front of yours will feel entitled to push in.
And then there are Egypt’s infamous U-turns. A disastrous piece of road planning found randomly on highways that are far too small to cope with the volume of traffic trying to use them. A favorite stunt among Egypt’s drivers is for someone to be out in the fourth lane and still attempt to make a U-turn — because why wait in line?
Egypt’s choked streets are notorious for the cacophony of car horns. Each set of honks carries a specific meaning, from swearing at someone to greeting another.
Most serious is the high price Egyptians pay for the chaos on their roads. Official figures say more than 5,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2016.
But these death tolls only count the number of people who died at the site of the accident. The actual toll could be double that when it includes those who died later from their injuries, said Osama Aqeel, a leading Egyptian roads expert.
Even Egypt’s Transport Minister Dr. Hisham Arafat admitted recently that the actual death toll could be as high as 13,000 a year.
The minister has also said that 94 percent of road accidents in Egypt are caused by human error and faulty vehicles, while road conditions amount to only 4 percent, and weather conditions 2 percent.
In 2016, a World Health Organization report placed Egypt among the 10 worst countries worldwide for its fatal roads.
Egypt in 2017 ranked 48th place globally for road traffic deaths, according to the transport minister.
The question of who is responsible for Egypt’s terrible driving, the government or the Egyptian people, has been left hanging for decades.
“’It’s a mutual responsibility between the government and the public,”’ Ibrahim Mabrook, a professor of transport and traffic engineering at Ain Shams University in Cairo, said.
Mabrook said Egypt can improve its road safety by “’engineering better roads, educating the public about road safety, enforcing strict laws, and applying the law equally on all members of society.”’ Aqeel said he finds the government 100 percent responsible for the high road traffic deaths because it is responsible for the entire strategy.
“’Saying that the majority of accidents in Egypt occur because of ‘human error’ is completely inaccurate in my opinion, because traffic regulation is the main factor,”’ he said.
In Egypt, trucks, buses, cars, motorcycles and pedestrians all share the same space on the roads. Aqeel said more than 40 percent of accidents that result in deaths involve trucks.
“’If we create alternative roads for trucks for instance to prevent them from driving with regular cars on major roads, the number of accidents resulting in death will immediately drop.”’
Ahmed Shelbaya, co-founder of the NADA Foundation For Safer Egyptian Roads, said road crashes are the “’number one killer of Egyptian youth.”’
He said the government does not take the road safety crisis seriously enough and that there is a lack of “’intelligent safety laws.”’
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Daily nightmare of commuting on Egypt roads
Daily nightmare of commuting on Egypt roads
US presses missile issue as new Iran talks to open in Geneva
- New round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region
- The dispute between the countries mostly revolves around Iran’s nuclear program
GENEVA: The United States and Iran are set to hold indirect talks in Switzerland on Thursday aiming to strike a deal to avert fresh conflict and bring an end to weeks of threats.
The new round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region and President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if a deal is not reached.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of “pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions.”
He also claimed Tehran had “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
The Iranian foreign ministry called these claims “big lies.”
The maximum range of Iran’s missiles is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed. However the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometers — less than a third of the distance to the continental United States.
The dispute between the countries mostly revolves around Iran’s nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb but Tehran insists is peaceful.
However the US has also been pushing to discuss Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as Tehran’s support for armed groups hostile toward Israel.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran must also negotiate on its missile program, calling Tehran’s refusal to discuss ballistic weapons “a big, big problem” on the eve of the talks.
He followed up by saying “the president wants diplomatic solutions.”
Iran has taken anything beyond the nuclear issue off the negotiating table and has demanded that the US sanctions crippling its economy be part of any agreement.
‘Neither war nor peace’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday he had a “favorable outlook for the negotiations” that could finally “move beyond this ‘neither war nor peace’ situation.”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the Iranian delegation at the talks, has called them “a historic opportunity,” adding that a deal was “within reach.”
In a foreign ministry statement that followed a meeting with his Oman counterpart, Araghchi said the success of the US negotiations depend “on the seriousness of the other side and its avoidance of contradictory behavior and positions.”
The US will be represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
The two countries held talks earlier this month in Oman, which is mediating the negotiations, then gathered for a second round in Geneva last week.
A previous attempt at negotiations collapsed when Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran last June, beginning a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.
In January, fresh tensions between the US and Iran emerged after Tehran engaged in a bloody crackdown on widespread protests that have posed one of the greatest challenges to the Islamic republic since its inception.
Trump has threatened several times to intervene to “help” the Iranian people.
Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that “the region seems to expect a war at this point.”
In January, there was “a big push by a number of Middle Eastern states to convince the US not to” strike Iran.
“But there’s a lot of apprehension at this point, because the expectation is that this time” a war would be “bigger” than the one in June.
Tehran residents who spoke to AFP were divided as to whether there would be renewed conflict.
Homemaker Tayebeh noted that Trump had “said that war would be very bad for Iran.”
“There would be famine and people would suffer a lot. People are suffering now, but at least with war, our fate might be clear,” the 60-year-old said.
The new round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region and President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if a deal is not reached.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of “pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions.”
He also claimed Tehran had “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”
The Iranian foreign ministry called these claims “big lies.”
The maximum range of Iran’s missiles is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed. However the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometers — less than a third of the distance to the continental United States.
The dispute between the countries mostly revolves around Iran’s nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb but Tehran insists is peaceful.
However the US has also been pushing to discuss Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as Tehran’s support for armed groups hostile toward Israel.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran must also negotiate on its missile program, calling Tehran’s refusal to discuss ballistic weapons “a big, big problem” on the eve of the talks.
He followed up by saying “the president wants diplomatic solutions.”
Iran has taken anything beyond the nuclear issue off the negotiating table and has demanded that the US sanctions crippling its economy be part of any agreement.
‘Neither war nor peace’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday he had a “favorable outlook for the negotiations” that could finally “move beyond this ‘neither war nor peace’ situation.”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the Iranian delegation at the talks, has called them “a historic opportunity,” adding that a deal was “within reach.”
In a foreign ministry statement that followed a meeting with his Oman counterpart, Araghchi said the success of the US negotiations depend “on the seriousness of the other side and its avoidance of contradictory behavior and positions.”
The US will be represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
The two countries held talks earlier this month in Oman, which is mediating the negotiations, then gathered for a second round in Geneva last week.
A previous attempt at negotiations collapsed when Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran last June, beginning a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.
In January, fresh tensions between the US and Iran emerged after Tehran engaged in a bloody crackdown on widespread protests that have posed one of the greatest challenges to the Islamic republic since its inception.
Trump has threatened several times to intervene to “help” the Iranian people.
Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that “the region seems to expect a war at this point.”
In January, there was “a big push by a number of Middle Eastern states to convince the US not to” strike Iran.
“But there’s a lot of apprehension at this point, because the expectation is that this time” a war would be “bigger” than the one in June.
Tehran residents who spoke to AFP were divided as to whether there would be renewed conflict.
Homemaker Tayebeh noted that Trump had “said that war would be very bad for Iran.”
“There would be famine and people would suffer a lot. People are suffering now, but at least with war, our fate might be clear,” the 60-year-old said.
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