Wikitravel writes this about Tehran:
“The traffic in Tehran is very dangerous and should be considered some of the worlds worst.”
In other places around the world, when you cross a street and a car comes towards you; the driver slows down unless he is drunk or mentally retarded or really wants to kill you. In Tehran you would really die sooner if you keep that assumption. Here, drivers will continue driving until they here a very big bang. I remember a German friend saying this about Tehran:
“Some people fall off cliffs, some people bungee jump and some people cross the streets in Tehran!”
For some reasons, I believe this behavior is more serious than a trivial ignorance rooted, for example, in culture or other vague things. For one thing you don’t see this behavior everywhere in Iran. I have traveled to almost every city in this country. Particularly, in Southern Islands in the gulf people drive very responsibly. Other cities are almost the same except for Isfahan where drivers are worse than Tehraners.
Of course Traffic is to blame. Both Tehran and Isfahan have very heavy traffic but it’s not the only reason. For one thing many other cities around the world have heavy traffic but they don’t drive like this. Then what causes this hostility? The driver perfectly knows that he will scare the pedestrian so why does he (or she) do it? I have only one answer.
This is how I see it: the driver values his own comfort and time -not pushing the brake pedal- more than the comfort of the Pedestrian. Let me take it to the extreme: He even does not care about a possible crash. The cost of crash is not that high where there is no good police and no good judiciary system. You can always pay someone off here.
That explanation does not completely cover it. It lacks the motivation! Why should a human want to hurt a human? I am very cynical and think they enjoy it.I think Humans start hurting each other for fun when there are no cheaper means of amusement.
Tehran does not have much entertainment. There are few parks (with modesty police arresting boyfriends and girlfriends), few cinemas (showing only Iranian movies) and no bars, no clubs, no amusement parks and not much else. and as I said before there is no good police and no good judiciary system, etc. So everyone goes on horsing around in the streets.
Be careful Crossing streets here.
{Note: It was hard to select a title for this post. I always find an alibi not to talk about Iran. It’s hard to stay honest on this subject and live to see the sunshine tomorrow. But the truth has a different wish of itself…}
