There are a variety of life events that one can write about in Egypt. And sometimes another person manages to capture the essense of the situation about as well as it can be said. The article on Cairo traffic by Michael Slackman certainly could be written differently by a dozen other people who have visited, or live in, Cairo but in the interest of a quick cost-savings analysis I think it's best right now to simply post the article and let his words say what it does.
I'm certain I'll provide an elaboration on double parking, use of horns, and other "right of way" concept observations but for now, I provide this as an introduction of traffic in Cairo.
July 17, 2007
Cairo Journal
Stepping Boldly Off the Curb, With a Wave and a Prayer
By
MICHAEL SLACKMANCAIRO, July 13 — Ahmed Hussein may well have one of the scariest jobs in Egypt. Every morning, about 7 a.m., he takes his position in the middle of some street, somewhere in this city of 2 million vehicles, and attempts to direct traffic.
This day he is staring down the barrel of Talat Harb Street, in the heart of Cairo. He is facing five rows of cars squeezed into three lanes of traffic, a scene intimidating in sight and sound. His assignment is to make sure the cars actually stop at the red light before barreling into a traffic circle. In Egypt, red light, green light, it’s all the same.
“The most important thing for us is if people follow the rules,” Mr. Hussein said with such understatement about the problem that he might as well have noted how different life would be in the Middle East if only there were peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The traffic here, and the army of police officers who try to manage it, tell much about modern Egypt in ways big and small. The first seems to be that no matter how crowded, and it is beyond crowded, no matter how chaotic, and it is beyond chaotic, Egypt functions.
The poor manage to eat. Children go to school. Government offices open and close. Garbage is collected. And the traffic flows, or perhaps crawls is a better description.
In fact, it is such a miracle that someone can get from Point A to Point B at certain times of the day that some say it must be a result of divine intervention. And that may be the second point. No one is saying the traffic is responsible for the Islamic revival in Egypt, but some people say the burden of the street, like the struggle of daily life, has reinforced a conviction that God’s hand must be helping people get through their day.
“It is amazing how people survive, and how Egypt continues to remain standing, and how the people can still, if they are patient enough, sometimes get to their destinations,” said Osama Anwar Okasha, a television writer whose shows explore Egypt’s social and political life. “It is as though there is some miracle. The solution is in the hands of some invisible force.”
Chaos. It is often the word associated with Egypt’s roads, its maddening bureaucracy, its ill-prepared health care system. But it is chaos only to the untrained eye, the uninitiated, and in the case of driving here, the weak of heart. There is a system, from top to bottom, which may be corrupt, class-based, inefficient and ineffective, but it is a system nonetheless.
Drivers almost never look behind them. And they rarely look to the side. Instead, the whole flow of cars moves like a school of fish, straight ahead, then weaving, darting in unison. The traffic stops, usually, when a traffic officer steps into the road.
“In all civilized countries there is no such thing as a guy standing giving signals for 10 hours,” said Brig. Gen. Hussein Bedeir, who supervises the officers. “But here, it is what people are used to.”
Over all, the Egyptian system seems to function on three basic principles: Every man for himself; when necessary, offer a little baksheesh (cash); and accept that money and connections go first.
“We are people who don’t do things unless someone is there to make us do it,” said Essam Qassem, a cabdriver fighting his way along Hassan Sabry Street in the well-to-do area of Zamalek. “We don’t comply with rules on our own.”
But people here say drivers’ lawless nature is not without a reason. These same traffic police officers assigned to make traffic move are also ordered to make traffic stop. They close the streets so Mr. Important does not have to tolerate the indignity of traffic. That makes people mad.
That sense of injustice, felt by the common man stuck for hours in deadlocked traffic, fuels disregard for the law in general, people said.
“The problem of Egypt is not that the Egyptian people do not like order,” said Salah Eissa, editor of Al Qahira, a weekly newspaper published by the Ministry of Culture. “It is the problem of making exceptions in enforcing this order — and this applies to traffic. It is something that provokes Egyptians and pushes them to think that since it is all a question of bullying, then every man to himself and everyone becomes a bully.”
Back at Talat Harb Street, the day was getting hot and Mr. Hussein’s radio was squawking like crazy. Horns. Exhaust. Aggressive drivers.
“You get used to it,” Mr. Hussein said.
There are 6,000 traffic police officers in Egypt, and in Cairo alone the police estimate they manage as many as two million cars squeezed into a system designed to accommodate a half-million cars at any one time.
The police at each intersection are divided by rank, and the men with long black sleeves are at the bottom of the ladder.
“Yes, it is very hot,” Said Galal Ahmed, 21, said, on a day the temperature hit over 100 degrees.
Mr. Ahmed, 21, was wearing a plastic reflective vest, long black sleeves over his long white sleeves. He is a military conscript paid the equivalent of $26 a month. He must serve for three years. His sole duty is to step into the street to stop traffic, then wave it on when it is time to go.
Mr. Hussein was higher on the ladder. He was wearing a light, short-sleeved shirt and carried a walkie-talkie, the universal symbol of power in the Middle East. Anyone can carry a gun, but a two-way-radio represents being part of something bigger, something with power: in this case, the Egyptian police.
With his superiors around, Mr. Hussein limited his conversation and smiled a lot. But across town, a traffic police officer named Muhammad Ahmed was more open. He said he made 400 pounds a month, or about $70, of which 150 pounds goes to rent.
To make ends meet, he said, he took other jobs, and without saying so acknowledged another fact of life in Egypt: the traffic police routinely take “tips” to allow people to park illegally, to remove boots from seized cars, to look the other way.
“While we admit the wages are meager, this is the capacity of the country,” said Ahmed Assem, a public relations official with the traffic police.
Tipping is not exactly condoned, but it is regarded as a safety valve, a way for people to make a few extra pounds at a time when prices are rising and salaries are not. It is also widespread at all levels of the system.
“Corruption is very widespread in society because it has become part of the mode of life here,” said Abdel Fattah al-Gebaly, an economist at the government-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “The social culture started to justify it — people consider it a kind of rizq now, a blessing from God.”
With his income and expenses, Mr. Ahmed said he could not really explain how he survived, which brought the discussion back to the first two points. The system works, but it must do so with some help from above, he said.
“Don’t ask how we make it every month,” he said. “God blesses us, and we manage.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times CompanyI found this article interesting especially when I compared it to the traffic police in Japan who also stand at intersections for hours at a time, but who have the utmost authority that is either respected or feared by drivers.
In Japan, the traffic cops stand - sometimes on a raised platform - and conduct traffic. I say they conduct traffic because they use a thin stick (something like those used by blind people) complete with a red tip. A simple gesture with the point of the stick and traffic responds like an orchestra. Even pedestrians freeze as if they were struck by Medusa when the tip is aimed at them. That's authority.
In Cairo, by comparison, the authority of the traffic cops is probably best described by a reporter (although I forget who it was so I can't provide proper attribution) who said, the traffic cops in Cairo have as much authority as a young substitute teacher in urban high school.
