CAIRO - The two-year-old Traffic Law has frustrated motorists in Egypt, where cars take priority over people's safety. The law, enforced on August 1, 2008, has done nothing to improve road safety or ease the traffic that is choking the life out of Cairo, motorists say, adding that it serves only to highlight official incompetence. Within five years, if nothing changes, experts predict that Cairo will simply grind to a halt, with every main road and back street clogged with barely moving, fume-spewing cars. In Egypt's capital, more than 4.1 million cars jostle for space on poorly planned roads, with drivers openly flouting the rules. "If the law is not properly enforced, Cairo will be paralysed, unable to move," says private car owner Yasser Abdel-Moula, regretting that this law is the typical story of something that ended before it began. "No-one was surprised by the media frenzy that accompanied the new law two years ago, when it was claimed that it would end the chaos on the nation's roads. But of course nothing of the sort has happened. "As expected, the strict enforcement witnessed in the early days soon fizzled out, to be replaced by the usual laxity.” Abdel-Moula does admit, however, that the law of 2008 is a triumph for the police, who've been collecting hefty fines from the motorists. Ahmed Abdel-Sabour, a taxi driver, says that the law has proved to be completely useless for alleviating the traffic problems in Egypt's capital. "The number of cars in the Greater Cairo region has almost doubled in the past two years. Meanwhile, there is less road space," Abdel-Sabour stresses, adding that the traffic congestion has actually increased in the past two years. “Traffic jams cost car and taxi owners millions of pounds a year in extra fuel consumption and lost productivity. The pollution they cause is also very bad for our health,” he complains. These jams, Abdel-Sabour continues, cost lives too. "I was once driving a critically ill man to hospital. He died in a huge traffic jam in central Cairo before we could reach the hospital," he says, adding that the police don't seem to be bothered anymore. "The Traffic Law is dead and you cannot breathe life into it," Abdel-Sabour says sadly, calling on the Government to limit the flow of private vehicles into the capital every day, in order to slash congestion. He would also like the police to be given more scope for managing the flow of traffic in Cairo. Samira Mahmoud, a car owner, says that the law, which was supposed to ease the chronic congestion in Cairo, has proved to be a great source of income for the Government. "The law has not been designed to deal with the traffic chaos. It was only adopted to make drivers pay more fines and suffer more chaos," Samira stresses, insisting that this two-year-old item of legislation has failed to improve the traffic in Cairo or ensure road safety across the nation.
