Altogether though, the new law includes several good points. First, the reconsideration of taxi tariffs should eliminate the petty conflicts between drivers and passengers. Second, religious and discriminatory posters on vehicles will be banned. Third, a modern system will be initiated to register confiscated licences and prevent the illegal issuance of another. Standards for traffic fees will be regulated, and licences will not be issued to vehicles that jeopardise lives.
Tuk-tuks will be licensed as ‘motorcycle cabs’, but will not be allowed to run on highways or in large towns.
20-year-old vehicles
The new law considers taxis that are more than 20 years old to be unfit for the purpose, and stipulates that they can only be used as privately-owned cars. These cabs used to hamper traffic because of frequent technical problems that force their drivers to park them on the side of the road until they can repair them. The vehicles were also huge consumers of the heavily subsidised 80-octane gasoline, and their emissions constituted a considerable source of pollution. The original plan was to altogether ban vehicles older than 20 years from travelling the roads of
Keeping tabs on drivers
No bumps or ‘sleeping policemen’ will be permitted without a licence obtained from district offices, and only after consultation with traffic experts. Artificial road bumps will be built and coloured so they can easily be seen. People who erect chain barriers by the sidewalk to prevent any vehicle from parking where parking is allowed are now obliged to remove them or else will have to pay a fine or face imprisonment.
The General Traffic Authority says
An information network will link traffic courts with traffic departments, meaning that if a driver breaches the traffic law in
Guilty till proved innocent
Apart from the traffic aspect, the constitutional background of the law also drew criticism. It was circulated that, in an addendum to the law, Egyptians were described as having an instinctive tendency for non commitment to regulations and being naturally inclined to break the law, which implies that everyone is guilty in the eyes of the law unless proven innocent. However Mohamed Mansour, head of the General Administration for Traffic, insists this is false in principle and content; Egyptian law, he says, can never so describe Egyptians.
The government’s urgency to pass the law without giving opposition MPs sufficient opportunity to contest it raised questions about official intentions, and drove many to describe the Egyptian administration as bordering on a police state. The law granted enormous power to the police, even traffic police, which increases driver anxiety. The law allows the police full authority to determine the type of penalty, and thus gives a green light to some drivers to pay bribes to avoid strict penalties.
Behind bars
Some critics have said that those who drew up the law are ignorant of the real reason for the traffic crisis in
Urban planning experts say traffic planning is by no means a security problem but rather an engineering one, in that it depends on the planning and condition of the roads and vehicles. They believe that if the new penalties are applied some 100,000 drivers will find themselves behind bars.