On a typical day in Lebanon, no matter where you live or work, a simple drive from point A to point B could induce heart attacks, stokes, and/or anxiety attacks amongst the best of us. Regardless of trying every known or undiscovered shortcut (until you start sweating through your eyeballs), you will still get stuck in traffic, drive into a ditch, or get verbally harassed by another road-raged driver. Why bother driving in the first place? “Yiii, my prestige doesn’t allow me to walk or use public transportation!”
In our 10,452 km² country and on our “very strategically built” highways, why all the traffic? Where in the heck does it start and end? You could be speeding down the road enjoying the music, when all of a sudden: a traffic jam (it begins and ends for no logical reason at all). I’ve come to notice a few reasons as to why this happens:
In our 10,452 km² country and on our “very strategically built” highways, why all the traffic? Where in the heck does it start and end? You could be speeding down the road enjoying the music, when all of a sudden: a traffic jam (it begins and ends for no logical reason at all). I’ve come to notice a few reasons as to why this happens:
1. Shops at the side of the road: Cars are ALWAYS parked in front of those shops, and it is inevitable that everyone must panic once a motorist attempts to drive back onto the highway. WHY is this so difficult? Cars driving by simply cannot slow down without creating havoc, and the motorist who is reversing out of their parking space suddenly forgets how to drive like a human being. The result: panic, and thus traffic.
2. Car accidents: No, I do not mean car accidents on the highway you are actually driving on; I mean accidents on the highway to your left. All motorists simply must stop (because the road belongs to their fathers) and stare at the accident (to check what car it is, if anyone died, and tell the whole world that they saw it first– Reuters style). Some motorists even get out of their cars and join the police men and ambulance drivers on the scene of the accident – why they do this, I will never know!
3. Left lanes: Almost everyone is always driving on the left lane. In all fairness, it is supposed to be the fast lane (everywhere except in Lebanon), but here we all make our own rules – the Lebanese motorists will drive on the left at 30 kmph (any slower and they’ll be moving backwards), and God forbid that you honk at any of them because they own the roads and are too uncivilized to understand the concept of a “fast lane”. As a result, you will only receive a handful of insults (the only way a Lebanese motorist knows how to communicate). “Man, kermel heik ba3mol betweeneit.”
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