Road Rage

Feraya (ski slopes) on a Sunday afternoon

In general, I don’t criticize the Lebanese, because even though a lot of things in this society are not right, it sure beats living in a Dutch society, where there are an equal number of things wrong, if not more. The weather being one of them.

But the traffic behavior of the Lebanese is something that really needs serious tinkering. What am I saying; it needs a major overhaul. And I am not even talking about the regular driving on the roads, but on their behavior whenever they encounter a traffic jam. Instead of just waiting in line, they make a double line, or even a triple line in the width of the road allows it. Thus they block oncoming traffic completely, making the jam even more of a jam.

So yesterday, as I got back from skiing – I had taken off my boots and put all the equipment in the trunk – I drove off the Wardeh parking lot (a ski slope in Feraya), and onto the road in the direction of the village. The road is about 2 kilometers long, and will fit two cars. Now the road was not cleared of snow, so it was very slippery, and – and this does not go on the credit of the Lebanese either – the oncoming traffic was all people from Beirut coming to ‘see’ the snow, which is fine, if you have a 4X4, or snow chains. But no, they assume that since all the ‘other’ cars got there (SUV’s and the like), they can get there too. So they get stuck, and block the upcoming road. People stuck behind them therefore double up, and then when someone is coming from the other side, the jam is complete.

It took me one hour to take that 2 km stretch road, and every now and then there’d be this incredible asshole – usual with wife and kids in the car as well – that would double the entire line, and drive all the way up to the front, making the jam even more monstrous. I just don’t get that. I understand that they drive the way they drive. And it really works well for this country. But this doubling up when you see that the road is blocked already; this must be really the optimum of moronism. Lots of morons on the road that day. I cursed and cursed and cursed, applied all my Arabic vocab, which is not that extensive, except when it concerns abusive language.

It took Caroline – who left one hour after me – two hours and thirty minutes for that same stretch of road. And she had the four twelve your old boys in the back, wearing ski boots, goggles, helmets and ski-jackets, so they were bouncing all over the place. It seems Caroline almost had a nervous breakdown. “Ca suffit”, she was screaming.

It seems the only ones getting 'road raged' were us; the last of the civilized drivers.

Adrian's ski-gang (and also the four boys (on the left) that were busting Caroline's balls in the back of her car.)

Weather was fantastic though, and so was skiing. Which are two of many reason why I'd rather live here than in Holland. Tomorrow is another day off (another reason, with many religions, you get many religious holidays), but as ‘Tout Beyrouth’ will go up, I am going to stay down (in Beirut, that is).