Stop This Madness
I realize the issue of road safety is the current craze in Jordan, but I feel the media and officials are taking it way too far, and in the wrong direction too.
Al Ghad published a report on road humps, which are so annoyingly common in Amman that drivers deliberately take alternative routes to avoid them. The report says that “citizens” value the humps and urge the municipality to increase their numbers (what citizens? can I punch them in the face?). It also says that the municipality does not install humps which are over 5cm in height, or which are unpainted or unrecognizable. That’s a glaring lie and everyone knows it — plenty of trick humps in Amman and other cities. The municipality is supposedly working on fixing the problematic humps which technically can ruin people’s cars and cause accidents themselves. I suggest they remove them entirely.
I also suggest authorities fix the streets and patch up the numerous random and invisible holes and mend the water drainage holes which lie about 5-10cm below street levels and make our cars dip in them and almost run into either the pavements or other cars trying to avoid them. I suggest the municipality award street building bids to reliable and professional contractors, instead of the random connected engineer who commands a sea of untrained Egyptian workers and then, surprise surprise, the tunnel or bridge chips after the first drops of rain it receives and the street dough cracks and peels. I suggest we stop the wasta tradition, starting with the municipality staff and engineers, and ending with driving coaches and testers, and then we won’t need road humps anymore.
Another piece of news was about the death of a four year old boy in an accident. The boy was run over by a car and passed away, and his father was pretty badly injured. Other similar stories were covered previously by all Jordanian newspapers in an almost press-release format over the past few months. While the tragedy of losing human life to recklessness is obvious, it’s very interesting to me to note that car accidents in years past never got the same attention they are getting now.
Previously, only when 5+ people died in a massive and horrorish accident did we read about that in the papers. Now, whenever an accident happens, it’s right there in the papers. This trend started with the death of Hikmat Qaddoura and the subsequent noise over the accident, including the march and the road safety campaign launched by his family and friends. At that time, I started noticing how the unprecedented buzz generated in the papers about this particular accident touched a sensitive nerve in many people who noted that since the deceased belonged to a wealthy family, his passing away got the kind of attention no road-killed kid from a less affluent family ever got. They argued that kids die every day in Rusaifa and Wihdat, and nobody bothers to publish anything about them.
I am guessing authorities received these notes and digested them well, and from then on, we read in the papers about some unwealthy, often disabled, commoner dying in a road accident. I remember not too long ago there was a story about a blind man’s son, or the blind man himself, passing away after being hit by a car. Today there was the story of the four year old boy, and the trend is obvious.
It’s absolutely fascinating how class differences affect people’s perception of issues. The common Jordanian was angered by the attention to the Qaddoura case on the basis that common kids never got the same attention. The Qaddoura case started things going with a march and an awareness campaign. Now suddenly the Amman municipality and road authorities care about road safety and the media bombard us with pictures of mothers crying over their deceased kids’ coffins. They also make us feel like we’re roaming killers instead of recognizing their faults and the faults within the system. The whole affair is disturbing for the following reasons:
1- Roads suck.
2- Drivers get their licenses a la wasta. No wonder they can’t drive.
3- Driving coaches make so many mistakes and illegal errors themselves when they don’t have their students with them. I see that every day.
4- Amman Municipality is capitalizing on the Qaddoura case and the subsequent attention to road safety to blame everything on us drivers. Again, patch the roads.
5- Sob rhetoric is lame and ineffectual.
6- Class differences will increasingly underscore people’s attitudes towards significant problems.
7- Road humps do not solve the problem. They create angry drivers and broken cars.
And that ends my rant about road safety in Jordan.
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May 4th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I agree, the roads are by no standards safe, but the blame in most accidents does in fact fall on the reckless drivers. It’s very sad that it took a well-off kid to die to capture the people’s and the authorities’ attention, but it DID attract attention to a very serious problem. Then again, assigning blame never solved anything, we need to find solutions.
P.S. The Kaddourah family are doing an amazing job in terms of raising awareness about these sorts of problems, and they’re using their money for a good cause.
May 4th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Though I agree with you that we have terrible poor conditions in our roads in jordan. A huge responsibility lays on us, i see people driving recklessly jsut everywhere in quiet neighborhoods, on main roads. we as drivers lack the ethics and good beahviour and most of us don’t even know tha basic rules of driving. The change starts at home and with our frineds and family members. I dont expect to see police officers on every street in jordan.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Heh-heh, did you see my post :)? Please don’t punch me, I am one of those citizens who values road bumps, as it seems the only way to slow down these absolutely insane, suicidal, maniac-ally dangerous ‘drivers’. Frustrating, expensive to fix axle and suspension problems, but extremely effective.
I place blame 95% with drivers. It is that concept that ‘it’s not wrong if I get away with it’ mentality. Until people get their heads out of that dark place they keep them when they drive, they’ll just have to deal with speed bumps.
I think assigning due blame is appropriate. Whether those to whom it belongs will actually own it and take steps to change is another story.
Hikmet’s death was the straw that broke the camels back. His death made news that should have been news years ago, but I think Jordanians got stuck in that hand-wringing, shoulder-shrugging ‘nasiib’ mentality that keeps any action from happening. When the right number of people get mad enough to take action, everyone rich & poor, jump on board and I think that is positive, not negative.
Sob rhetoric works with mothers. Mothers are the ones who change the world, and they are finally tired of losing their babies to maniacs.
AND, it would very nice if they would fix the roads, too.
AND, I would like a hot-line to report dangerous drivers. I’d put it as the first number on my cell phone.
May 4th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Wow, can’t say a word, exactly what I was thinking, I agree with every single point you have mentioned, unfortunately all these new strategies and techniques that lately have been amazingly created by Jordanian government are definitely not for the road and people safety, for example: hidden cameras and/or traffic policemen in private cars can only be considered as another way to suck money from citizens and media use.
Yes it’s mainly the lightheaded drivers’ responsibility, BUT it’s the government responsibility to prevent such lightheadedness in the first place, well someone will jump and say this is all the new traffic law about, BUT (again) the misfortune here is that law is not applicable on every one, most of those lightheaded drivers are the spoiled Childs of well-know wealthy fortified families.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:15 am
I don’t only think we need more road bumps, I think we need to dig deeper holes in streets, especially highways and major streets, holes so deep that drivers can get injured if they fall in them. If a driver is caught speeding anyone not just policemen should have the right to shoot them and whoever is riding with them in the car.
that seems the only to cut down a little bit on the deaths we’re suffering from speeding driver.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:53 am
What’s wrong with having this new buzz? Regardless of how it all got started, it is here now, and it is - even if at a small scale - making some people think twice before speeding.