Cairo, Egypt’s bustling capital has become a nightmare for motorists as well as pedestrians. The roads are more like death den and not for the ones with faint disposition.
The roads are overcrowded and there is no respect for traffic laws and rules. Lane driving is a distant dream and the traffic is total chaos. Jammed roads and accidents are quite normal for Egyptians and specially for the ones living in Cairo.
Modern Cairo was built to house four million people. It has swelled to some 17 million which is why narrow two-way streets on the banks of River Nile, are by 0900 local time transformed into four –lane carriageways (BBC 2009). The statement explains the problem very clearly, while the population has quadrupled, the infrastructure has not increased and hence the existing system and infrastructure has failed and crumbled.
Egypt has always been infamous for its poor traffic regulations and management. Cairo in fact has fared badly compared to rest of the Egypt. The average commute for city’s vehicles is around 37 minutes, very high as per any standard. The traffic problem has triggered and catalyzed more road accidents and consequently more deaths. The city has in excess of 2.2 million vehicles and almost inadequate roads to handle them. According to official records almost 17,000 accidents were reported in Egypt in 2011 alone! These accidents claimed 7,115 lives (a staggering 20 per day) and injured as many as 27.479 (Fox 2012).
That explains the sorry state of traffic in Egypt and how it has become one of the prime reasons for deaths in Egypt. It has even lead to huge economic losses to Egypt, with many experts claiming that Egypt loses around four per cent of its GDP to traffic congestion. This is indeed serious waste of money and lives of innocent people. The situation in Cairo in much more grave and the figures are much more appalling and sorry. In Cairo, According to World Bank estimates around 1000 die as a result of traffic accidents-half of those being pedestrians- while over 4000 are hurt (Fox 2012). The data is indeed very shocking. But
according to many groups and NGOs in Egypt, road accidents in Egypt are far more than what government claims and hence this goes on to prove the seriousness of the problem.
Quite recently, on December 2, 2012, five German tourists and two Egyptians were killed in a bus crash near an Egyptian Red Sea resort. (TheWest 2012). The accident was a result of head on collision between two mini buses. Such accidents are a result of bad road conditions and spineless and lax enforcement of traffic laws.
On November 17, 2012, twelve people were killed and three seriously injured when a truck ran into a minibus near Cairo. This was hours after an accident which claimed the lives of 47 school children (France-Presse 2012). The data and accidents bear a testimony to the horrible and pathetic traffic conditions across Egypt and specially in Cairo. IT also points to continued government apathy which has failed to come out with strong regulations and plans to curb the menace.
With poor traffic conditions, inappropriate and inadequate infrastructure, poor implementation of rules and policy, indifferent attitude of people towards traffic rules and government apathy; improvement in the traffic conditions in Egypt looks like a distant dream. The condition is going worse from bad each day and the chances of improvement look very grim and light. As per experts the problems in Egypt, and specifically in Cairo are set to increase manifolds in near future if no concrete and over the top steps are taken by the governments. One looks at the data of number of deaths due to accidents in Cairo, shudders and hopes that things change soon, for this is pure waste of lives.
References
BBC (2009). Cairo’s terrifying traffic chaos. Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved December 6, 2012
Fox Michael (2012). Fixing Cairo’s Traffic woes. Dailynewsegypt.com. Retrieved December 6, 2012
TheWest (2012). Five German tourists killed in Egypt bus crash. Thewest.com.au. Retrieved December 6, 2012, From killed-in-egypt-bus-crash/
France-Presse, Agence(2012). Second Egyptian accident kills 12. InterAkyson. Retrieved December 6, 2012
