I must mention the traffic in Cairo

A couple of words come to mind when I think of the traffic in Cairo, demented and insane. I will expand on that theme.

First story: We arrived at the Cairo airport about 10:30pm on a Friday. We were met by a representative from the tour and had no difficulties with any paperwork or inspections. Our representative took charge of everything and we trailed along behind him doing exactly what he said to do and we were outside in the desert air of Egypt in about 15 minutes after we picked up our luggage. Then the fun began. We climbed onto the hotel airport shuttle and took off. It felt like at least 2 or 3 of the 4 wheels were on the road at the same time most of the time. We learned that there are two speeds for motorized vehicles in Egypt, bat-out-of-hell and stopped.

Because it was late at night, there weren't many other vehicles sharing the road so our driver took what looked like a couple of short-cuts. One was the wrong way down a one way street and the other I am slightly confused about but it involved weaving between orange cones. All this done at breakneck speed. We were slightly disconcerted but then we hadn't driven in Athens traffic yet.

We met up with four more people from our tour at the hotel the next morning and most of the rest of the tour arrived from the airport in the afternoon. We climbed on board our bus and were off to see Cairo. The city population is 17 million. 17 million people all crowded into a city one thousand years old. Cairo was a large city before the automobile and very few streets are built to accomodate the automobile. We passed many streets (?) lanes (?) alleys (?) that were only wide enough for animals, pedestrians, scooters and motorcyles.

Automobiles share the road with: other cars, buses (big and small), motorcycles, scooters, donkeys (with and without carts), horses, camels and pedestrians. At first I was horrified, there are no stoplights, few stop signs, no one uses turn signals, everyone is constantly changing lanes (instead of using a turn signal they honk their horn when passing) and very few headlights at night. I did see a couple of traffic cops at very large intersections and the drivers were very good about paying attention. All policemen, including traffic cops, carry weapons (including the kind with bullets) so that may be a motivation to cooperate.

Pedestrians have to be quite agile and really pay attention. Nerves of steel would also help. I think that the scooter and motorcycle drivers don't have any nerves. I watched them weave in and out of lanes of traffic, up onto the sidewalks (did I mention agile pedestrians) sometimes carrying heavy loads or several people on one scooter.

I did not personally witness any accidents. I did see some close calls and one miracle. I also saw lots of scrape marks and dents on the sides of cars we passed. The current attitude seemed to be that everyone drives like that, so just join in. My personal recommendation to any American traveling in Egypt, don't rent a car unless it comes with an Egyptian driver.

Oh yes, the miracle. Here is the situation: we are traveling in downtown Cairo in our bus. We are on a main street that is 3 lanes wide in each direction. We are on the inside lane where there is raised curb area (for pedestrians safety I suppose) that separates the east bound lanes from the west bound lanes. I am sitting next to a window looking at the traffic going the opposite direction. A young man steps off the curb into our lane, he trips and falls flat on the street directly in front of our great big bus. Gasp!! The miracle is that our bus driver was not looking to the side and changing lanes, he was looking in front, saw the man fall and managed to stop the bus with inches to spare. The fallen pedestrian was laying in the street literally nose to tire tread. The young man staggered to his feet, waved at the driver and limped off. The look on this face as he passed said, "I can't believe I am still alive". (Footnote) No one crashed into the back of our bus when we slammed to a stop.

The drivers in Cairo may be demented and/or crazy but they sure can handle a vehicle.