It seems that we Lebanese have a reputation around the world for mad driving. In some countries they say, "to drive like a Lebanese". Heck, we use that expression to speak of ourselves, as this reputation is entirely deserved. However, "mad" should by no means be taken as a synonym of "bad". It is by Western standards that we drive in an uncivilized way, simply because we don't follow many of the rules for driving. As an American friend put it, "in Lebanon every rule is subject to a common sense override". The very people whose jaws dropped in horror at seeing us on the road had to hand it to us that we were good. I hear that the German made a statement that the Lebanese are the best drivers in the world. Let me give you a glimpse into our unusual driving habits.
For someone who hasn't learned driving right here, taking the wheel can seem a daunting task. I don't know how things were 25 years ago, but 17 years of war erased most traces of driving regulations. I never saw a working traffic light in Beirut until around 1997, when they started reinstalling them. As a result, I often burn red lights, not because I don't respect them, but because I don't see them! I was never accustomed to them and so somehow, my brain doesn't react to them. Increasingly more drivers respect them now, but not for fear of policemen. The most common tickets to be given are parking tickets, and occasionally, if you're unlucky enough to drive past a radar, you may get a speeding ticket. That's about all a policeman will bother stopping you for.
There are no lines on the road, and right now having them would be a waste of energy: not only would people superbly ignore them, but the roads are so poorly done that every winter, the extremely strong rains that flood the city wash away the bitumen on certain streets.
A country's natural conditions plays a large role in the driving attitude of its inhabitants: since most of Lebanon is made up of mountain that dip straight towards the sea, we are used to sinuous, sloping roads between mountain wall and ravine. Similarly, because our cities grew organically on an ancient core, many streets are painfully narrow and with everyone parking recklessly, it's sometimes a matter of 2 cm on either side of the car, and we fold the mirror to be able to pass. When I went to Australia, vast and flat, I was amazed to see my friend did not feel comfortable on curves! She also avoided parking sideways and always looked for head-on spots, a luxury that we can't afford here. Parking in Beirut is truly an adventure, and a frustrating one at that. There are too many cars and too little space. Fortunately there are small, privately owned parking lots a bit everywhere. The greatest blessing of this country may be the parking lots with their flat that is usually $1 – 2 if the owner has delusions of grandeur. They can be cramped, but that's OK because the usage in those cases is to give the parking owner the car keys and let him move the car around as needed to let other cars pass. When the cutting-edge ABC mall opened around 2003 with a modern underground parking, it only charged for a few weeks before being forced to make the parking free. People would just refuse to be ripped off that way.
Back to the road though, where most of the parking still occurs since the Lebanese don't like to walk. Double-parked is common, even on curves, and triple is not all that rare – even on curves. Sometimes I run across a car parked right in the middle of a curve, and I have to drive around it. The explanation is simple: the person triple-parked and the two previous cars left before he or she did, making it look as if a maniac had abandoned his vehicle right there. Most of the rules-breaking is harmless, but this kind of parking is terribly irritating as it blocks the road altogether. Equally irritating is the reckless honking, either by services (as described in my article "Old Mercedes retire in Beirut") or by people trying to get somebody's attention, or people trying to call the twit who cheekily parked his car right in front of their driveway! This happens to us on regular basis, much to my father's fury. Usually the driver comes running after a minute, apologizing, but sometimes they disappear completely. A kind of officious protocol exists to deal with this kind of disregard (well, at least in my neighbourhood):
If the driver is in the car or within sight of it, it's ok. They're still within the limits of decency.
If they are not there, the first step is to start honking. Drivers who have parked in illegal conditions develop a sixth sense that allows them to immediately understand that the honk is addressed to them.
The moment I start honking, the driver has 5 minutes of grace to run back to the car and move it.
After 5 minutes, if nobody shows up, I get an egg (or more) and smash it on the windscreen. If someone is ever foolish enough not to close their car windows all the way, I will make sure the egg splashes into the car.
After 10 minutes, I remove the tyre plugs and make sure to lose them. I use this nifty little gadget that is used to relieve tyre pressure, to deflate them all the way. I'm not cruel enough to use a knife yet, but some do.
After 15 minutes, I start causing actual damage to the car. Twisting the mirrors, kicking the body in a few choice places (if I have the heart. The car really shouldn't pay for the driver, but people with nice cars are usually not stupid enough to endanger them this way).
Does that sound barbaric? It's just common sense. Anyone who chooses to ignore a "Parking entrance, do not park here anytime" sign is 100% responsible for what is done to the car, and they know it, too. If they really had no other choice, there is no simpler thing than to leave their phone number inside the windscreen – we always check if there is one first. If they don't even bother with that, then... too bad. Although I'm starting to consider adding a sign that says: "Any car parked here will be mauled beyond recognition."
Others who think traffic regulations don't apply to them are those scooters that consider themselves to be pedestrians and accordingly take every one-way street the wrong way. Not to say that cars don't do this as well. They do it too often, and in narrow streets that is a pain. Worse: they will act all annoyed if you make them back away! Typical and dangerous are those fools that drive backwards on the highway when they missed an exit. The logic is this: one is still in the correct direction when driving backwards! Novice drivers have to deal with such idiots every day, as well as with those who fly at high speed on the roads and slalom between cars. Speed limits and radars were introduced a couple years ago, but that doesn't click with the local minds: when a Lebanese is on a given road heԬ'll go as fast as he believes is safe. Pedestrians trying to cross the road must run for it! There are no pedestrian crossings, and it is a local joke (based on the truth) that when a car sees somebody crossing, it will accelerate instead of slowing down. Why, don't ask. Maybe they think they can make it before the person reaches that part of the road. Experienced pedestrians can make their calculations so that they can cross a road by instalments if necessary, pausing in the middle where it's semi-safe before moving on. Personally I can tell if a car's speed would allow it to stop in time -- and I make it stop by firmly stepping on the road in front of it in order to cross.
From the driver's point of view, pedestrians with their wild crossing are one of the many hazards of the road. I often compared my 10-minute journey to university to a Nintendo game. "Dodge the holes in the road. Don't squash the traffic agent. Watch out for the scooter that bursts out of a one-way street at high speed. Alert, someone high-speeding on a curve in the tunnel! Hit the brakes, taxicab stopping right in front without signalling. Crossing cat! Watch the bump!" An exhausting experience!
With all the above, you are probably wondering how on earth I can still think we are excellent drivers. It's just that we get trained hard. The jungle state of our traffic is like a continuous training and test that insures we develop the best control, the best eye-hand coordination and the best reflexes in the driving world. Every moment requires personal thinking and decision-making. We take nothing for granted: before we move, we look to the left and right, front and back, wave and do whatever we need to tell the other drivers what we're about to do. Compared with countries where something as trivial as a blackout causes terrible accidents, it's a no-brainer to decide in whose hands I would put my life.
| Article © Joumana Medlej |