When in Lebanon… don’t drive

When Adel Al Zaabi of the UAE went for a holiday in Lebanon, he thought of renting a car to avoid the insolence of nagging cab drivers. Although Zaabi has been driving for more than 20 years in the UAE, he had an accident in Lebanon on the next day.

“I can’t believe it…the way people drive in Lebanon gives you the impression that there is no traffic law…they are simply addicted to offences,” the 55-year-old man said.

“I saw many traffic police men on the road but it was clear most drivers just don’t care…every driver seems to have his own law…I returned the car on the next day after I had an accident and decided that it’s better standing the insolence of taxi drivers.”

But it is not just the offences committed by the drivers. Roads in many areas in Lebanon are still considered monstrous for the vehicles in the absence of regular maintenance.

Nearly 18 years after the end of the 20-year civil war, the infrastructure in Lebanon of 4.5 million people is still one of the worst in the Arab region. Roads are very narrow and are dotted with big pits and humps while they lack any lane markings, leaving it for the drivers to decide where the limit for their lane will extend.

The power sector is also largely underdeveloped as many areas suffer daily from long outage periods while water and gas supply services are too slow.

Visitors to Lebanon are annoyed mostly by the traffic. Cars as old as 1960 still roar on the roads and ooze black smoke out of their eroding exhaust.

Drivers appear completely careless as they battle their way into the roads without consideration for their life or others’ lives. Many of them approaching the traffic signal simply do not stop at the red lights when there is no police man, mostly at night. During the day, a police man is seen standing at the signal struggling to organize the messy traffic, screaming at the impatient motorists and swearing at offenders.

“I took a taxi from Beirut to Sidon in the south…the trip was about 45 minutes but it was a real agony of days and a journey of horror for me,” said Mark Collison, an archeologist who has just taken up a job to supervise an excavation project in the port of Sidon.

“The driver kept going from the right to the left lane then back to the middle then back again and again…he was simply zigzagging all the way towards Sidon…on my way, we passed through a roundabout and I was stunned when I saw that some cars were coming in the wrong way…just before we reached Sidon, the driver jumped the red light…when I panicked and I asked him why, he simply said there was no policeman.”

Driving near roundabouts in most areas outside the Lebanese capital is a big risk. There are no traffic boards to guide drivers before entering the roundabout and when inside it, the cars are caught in a spider web-like maze.

“We entered that roundabout, I could count at least 50 cars inside it…some of them doing clockwise and others counter-clockwise…traffic was moving at a snail pace as every driver was pushing his way through in total disregard of the law or female drivers….no driver would give way to the other and most of them just hostilely eyed each other…what amazed me was that there was no argument or fight,” Collison said.

Experts attributed the traffic mess in Lebanon to several factors, including the absence of deterrent laws, lax cops on the roads and the psychological effects of the civil war.

“The civil war and other conflicts in Lebanon have had many negative repercussions and long-term effects on the attitude of people,” a Lebanese psychiatrist said.

“The conflicts have created a sort of anarchy, hostility and roughness in the people’s minds….they simply are used to anarchy and pushing…unfortunately, order has become an exception and anarchy is the rule in Lebanon.”

Breaking the traffic law is not continued to the roads in Lebanon. Many people drive without a licence while a large number of taxi cabs are unlicensed private cars.

Persistent raids and random checkpoints by the police and army troops have failed to stem such offences given the deteriorating living conditions.

The problem worsened after the influx of more than one million Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war at home as many of them used their private cars as taxis.

 “If you ask me when we will see an organized, civilized and orderly lifestyle in Lebanon again, I will tell you I have no idea…new generations were born amidst and after the war with a war-like attitude…I’m afraid that this could go for decades.”

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