Driving in Egypt

Note:  This post was written in August of 2012, but I refrained from posting it to spare our family and friends a year's worth of worry about our safety.  Now that we are home we can tell the story.



Last weekend we were invited to go with one of my husband's co-workers, 'Dave', on a trip to the Siwa oasis.  This oasis is about an eight hour drive from Cairo.  Dave has lived here in Egypt for three years and lived in Iraq for three years before that.  He knows the Middle East and Arabic very well so he knew what would be needed for such a long trip.  We had a very nice van, an excellent driver (the best the tour company had), and a security guard to go with us on this trip.  We had to get special permission from the Embassy security office to go so far out of the city, but they were satisfied with the arrangements Dave had made.  As it turned out, it was fortuitous that Dave had worked so hard to make these exact plans.

We left on Thursday afternoon from the Embassy in Cairo.  It took us a good two hours to get out of the city because Friday was the start of a big Muslim holiday- Eid al Fitr.  This is the celebration of the end of Ramadan and many Egyptians were either returning home from spending Ramadan with family, or going on holiday for the weekend.  The traffic was bad even by Cairo standards.

The city streets turned into a major six-lane highway just at the edge of Cairo.  The traffic speed picked up even though the road was still very crowded.  Our driver was being conservative by staying in the right-hand part of the road (lanes, even though clearly marked, are taken merely as suggestions by all Egyptian drivers).  I was reading a book and happened to glance up at one point.  I think I must have immediately closed my eyes, because all that I saw was a large tractor trailer on the left side of the van and a group of men around a broken-down car on the right side, standing in the road.  Our driver started honking furiously as the tractor trailer moved more to the right, squeezing our van towards the men.  I heard a dull thump and our van pulled to a stop.

The driver said something quickly to the guard and bailed out of the van.  The guard immediately pulled a weapon out from under the seat, bailed out the other side of the van and locked all the doors.   All too soon we knew what happened.  The screams we heard outside confirmed that our van had hit one of the men.  Once we were able to speak again, the two guys said that they had actually seen the man being thrown along the side of the van as we passed.  We found out later that the headlight on that side and the wing mirror were both destroyed.  There was a line of spittle along the side window, left by the man's face as it slid across.

Both the driver and the guard were on their cell phones within seconds, and Dave was not far behind in calling the Embassy security.  The biggest concern of everyone in our party was that three Americans had been involved in a potentially fatal traffic accident.  Within the city limits it is highly likely in these situations that a flash mob will form and all those seen at fault will be assaulted.  We were extremely lucky to be both outside the city limits and to have a security guard with a weapon.  Both those things kept the situation from escalating.  The embassy security office called every few minutes while we were waiting on the side of the road to make sure that things were remaining calm. 

Our driver had a medical kit and did his best to stabilize the injured man while an ambulance arrived.  Our guard stayed next to our door with his gun out the whole time.  All the window screens were closed in the van.  I thought at the time this was to keep us from seeing what was going on, but I was informed later that this was so that no one could see that it was Americans sitting in the van.

After the ambulance left, the driver and guard called the tour company and had a long discussion with them.  The embassy security called one last time and was satisfied that we were safe.  We were given permission to continue with our trip.  As we pulled back into traffic the driver asked if we were ok and we assured him that we were.  His closing remark to this adventure was, 'I'm am sorry it happened, but this is normal in Egypt.'

From what we can tell, there is no such thing as insurance here- medical or driver's- and very few, if any, lawsuits.  At no time were any police to be found anywhere nearby.  We think that the driver got the injured man's information and that the tour company may pay something towards his medical costs, but we will never know how the story ended for him.  We are hoping he survived and will be well.

As scary as this event was, we are also reassured about our safety here.  When everyone's energy should have been focused on the injured man, nearly everyone involved was working to ensure our own safety instead.   Although no Egyptian police showed up, if we had needed them, we would have had American embassy security on the scene within minutes.  Since these types of accidents seem to be a regular occurrence, we are extremely fortunate to have had a driver and guard who knew what to do, reacted calmly and rationally, and kept the situation from getting out of hand.  And as we will now never stand around in a major highway (on the very off chance we might one day have!), we are not afraid for our own safety on the roads.

Update:  Our friend who traveled with us ended up with the same driver again about a week later.  The driver said that he went to visit the injured man in the hospital and the worst thing that happened to him was that he had a concussion and a broken leg.  We were so happy to know that he was alive and will recover completely!