NO PARKING!

I had yet to see a “No Parking” sign in Cairo. Cars parked on both sides of a narrow street, cars parked on the pavements, cars double parked or at times even “triple parked” are a common sight here. I thought that the city of Cairo had never heard of “no-parking” areas. So, the incident that took place last week took me by surprise.

I was visiting the Al-Kotob bookstore on the El Lasilky road in New Maadi. Once I had alighted from the car in front of the bookstore, my driver kept waiting there on the curb, thinking that I would be back soon. Soon a traffic policeman approached him and asked for his license. He said that he was sorry and would go away but the police insisted on “seeing” his license. When my driver took it out to show him, the policeman just took it from his hand and walked away. My driver approached him with LE 10 in his hand to get back the license but the policeman just shook his head and said “No… don’t make me angry”, implying that he was not happy with the tenner that my driver was offering. The policeman quoted LE 30 for giving back the license. After much haggling and bargaining, the matter was settled at LE 25. The money would be split between the three traffic policemen on duty at that place! Nothing to go the government’s coffers!


This is a nice way to extract money from the unsuspecting souls-the no parking signs on the Lasilky road are put up so unobtrusively so as not to be visible at all, thereby luring cars to be parked there. Two sign are put up in front of a building housing a bank, giving the impression that the no parking regulation is specific to that building; and another is put up between trees, so as to be almost invisible!

According the new traffic law passed by the Egyptian government in August of this year, parking in no-parking zones is punishable with your license being revoked for a period of not less than 30 days. For more on the new traffic rukes, check out this link. The new stringent traffic rules may not have resulted in better traffic discipline and more money in the government’s coffers but has definitely increased the earnings of the traffic police. According to my driver, before the new traffic law came into force, the matter would have easily settled at LE 10 but the stiff fines and the prison sentences under the new law has also seen an upswing in the money extorted by the traffic police.