Tehran's roads - a chance to dismiss authority
Posted: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 10:31 AM
Filed Under:
Tehran, Iran
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
I was sitting in solid traffic in downtown Tehran when the rebellion began – a handful of honking horns, quickly rising to a deafening crescendo, as more and more cars joined in.
The traffic lights ahead had been red for several minutes, and were being controlled by a policeman. You could tell that because a large digital sign that usually contained a countdown to the change of lights had been replaced by the letters "PO," for "Police Operated" – and the hapless policeman was not changing the lights anywhere near fast enough for Tehran’s impatient drivers.
The cars at the front edged forward like a herd of snarling beasts, horns blasting. Then one old Paykan taxi (a horribly polluting Iranian produced car that has been largely phased out, but which still make up the majority of taxis) led the charge across the junction, a stampede of metal close behind. The policemen, wisely hidden away in his police box, had little choice but to give way to the mob. The lights flickered to green.
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| Ian Williams / NBC News |
| Traffic clogging Tehran's streets. |
To me it seemed like yet another example of Tehran’s traffic chaos, where lights are frequently regarded as discretionary, rules routinely ignored. But my driver could hardly contain himself, and between bursts of laughter he told me how satisfying it was to be able to break the rules – to thumb your nose at authority – and get away with it, since there are so few opportunities to do that outside the car.
A wonderful world of subversive opportunity
This wasn't the first time I'd heard this, others telling me how driving in Tehran was a great break from the shackles of everyday life, the car opening a world of wonderfully subversive opportunities.
The police may have noticed this too, at least up to a point. Earlier I’d seen one of their public service cartoons, which are broadcast on television here, urging driver to be more courteous. It showed two men leaving an office, holding the doors open for each other, and generally being extremely polite. But as soon they got in their cars, they were like men possessed, hurtling down the streets, cutting each other up and giving way to nobody.
What I can say for sure is that the traffic is diabolical here. Not only the number of cars and the perpetual bumper-to-bumper jams, but the chaos of it all, cars going for gaps, darting across junctions as if playing an endless game of chicken. It’s not unusual to see cars reversing up motorways because they missed their junction, or driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway because the other side is gridlocked. Nobody seems to give way unless absolutely necessary to avoid collision.
I also noticed that once behind a wheel, the women of Tehran give as good as they get.
There are few cars that don’t bear the scars of war. Motorcycles weave in and out, loads precariously balanced on their backs. Buses have no respect for anybody; it’s almost Darwinian – survival of the fittest, or at least the biggest.
There are 2 million cars in Tehran, which is one of the most polluted cities on the planet. Accident rates are horrendous – thousands of people die on Iran’s roads every year. Every day I’ve witnessed the aftermath of shunts or scrapes, cars sitting stationary where they hit, drivers arguing, the traffic snarled up even worse as a result.
I witnessed the aftermath of one accident, a bus having shunted a small car completely off the road, and into a ditch from which its rear end protruded.
Yet after three weeks here, I came to greatly admire my driver’s ability to weave, push and jostle his way through it all – always with a smile on his face.
Golden rules for Tehran roads
So I asked him what the four golden rules are for driving in Tehran. He thought for a moment before raising one finger:
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"Number one, lights don’t mean anything. Even when it is green, it is best to look to see what’s coming the other way." I told him I’d already figured that one out for myself.
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"Number two," he said, "You’ve got to concentrate, got to have your senses about you, since cars can come from anywhere." Though as he turned in his seat to address me in the back, I had a horrible feeling he wasn’t concentrating as well as he should. But I needn’t have worried, he seemed to have a sixth sense, seeing a pushy taxi trying to nudge in on our right.
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"Rule three," he said, "anything can happen," which sounded to me a bit like rule two.
I asked him why the traffic was so bad, all the time – particularly when compared with other cities, there wasn’t that much to do in Tehran, especially after dark. He told me that most socializing takes place in private at home, which I guess does require a lot of driving, and sometimes in the cars themselves.
One or two of the city’s major roads have become renowned for illicit dating, youngsters cruising and exchanging telephone numbers. And a good bit of gridlock can work wonders for the phonebook. As a result the Basij, a religious militia, and possibly the most feared people in Tehran, can often be seen in groups on the roadside, peering into cars for signs of illegal liaisons. In Iran this means any couple out in public who aren’t related, though it is increasingly flouted.
Then I remembered that my driver hadn’t told me his forth rule. "Oh, rule number four," he said, "is that there are no rules," which really did make him laugh.
