CAIRO - The 224km-long Kharga-Assiut Highway, which is indispensable for tourism and investment in Upper Egypt and the Western Desert oases, is woefully lacking in services. Users of the highway complain that they're taking a great risk, as there are no petrol stations, car repair workshops, cafeterias or even toilets, along its entire length. The dual carriageway, is also very dangerous to drive on, especially at night, because of its many curves, Mohamed Abdel-Radi a lorry driver, told Al-Messa Arabic daily. He cannot understand why this narrow road should take a serpentine route, when the civil engineers who built it had the whole desert at their disposal. There has been a toll station on the road for the past three years, but motorists resent paying the obligatory LE5, because of the lack of services. The road does, however, have four equipped ambulance units, but this is not enough, given the number of accident's on the nation's highways and there's only room for one casualty in each ambulance.
