I believe recently the authorities have decided to banish the toktok from Egyptian sands. I see this as a foolish decision. When you decide on something, you must think of the consequences to yourself and the others who will be affected by this decision. The toktok is an excellent means of transportation over short distances in remote areas of Cairo. If you take this away many people will suffer. Find another cheap solution before you take this away. Think about the people. That is being civilized.
Another problem we face in West Cairo is the "highway" called the Mehwar. There was no maintenance done to the highway throughout its lifetime. Now they are in the process of redoing it and still they yet to learn that there is something called a hard shoulder which is an empty lane reserved for broken down cars...etc. They also want to stop the micro-buses from stopping on the highway. This again is the black and white decision making of the authorities. What will people who live around the highway do? They will have no easy means of transportation. They will surely suffer. Wouldn't it be better if we offered them another solution, if we thought about them for a second, if we thought about their rights as citizens in Greater Cairo.
Te2ool lee meen? ("Who do you tell?" - an Arabic expression of hopelessness)
Masr Om El Donia!!! ("Egypt - the mother of the world")
:D
2 comments:
Hello Tarek,
Well, I read your topic about the Toktok. I agree with you in some point and I disagree in other points.
Yes, we aren’t a civilized country and that is a fact that we got to admit, but does this mean that we leave things out of control!? What I am trying to say is, the TokTok isn’t that good looking, and as you know that anybody can drive it as there is no license for it, so you will see many people fooling around with it, and as a fact that did happen. If you recall, there has been several accidents due to some stupid drivers.
About banning the TokTok from Egypt, for me I think that it was a good decision, but what should have been done was paying all the loans of people who are in debts, because they didn’t tell them in the first place that this will be banned, or didn’t give an warning at all.
And from an engineering view, well…. I am not a mechanical engineer :D:D, but I think that a 4 wheel car is more stable than a 3 wheel, at least you can know how it is unstable at U-turns …(OH YEAH, it might even flip over)
Anyways keep it up Tarek,
And I will be reading your blog!
Best of Luck
Khaled Raed
First I would like to thank you for your comment.
I love comments on my blog!
I live outside of Cairo and every single day I see accidents on the Mehwar. Bad driving manners are something Egypt should also tackle. Public driving awareness is zero.
As I live in the new cities of Greater Cairo, I see the toktok serving people. I see how valuable it is of a service to those who live in remote areas. They could easily introduce a license for the toktok but it will still be a long time before we see our Egyptian driving manners improving.
The toktok is not good-looking because I think we all associate it with India. We see it as a sign of poverty. I actually saw a similar vehicle on Oxford street in London. It was like the toktok but with a bicycle instead of a motorbike. I dont think the toktok looks exceptionally ugly. I think we see it that way because we associate it with poverty and uncivilized ways.
The point of this post was that banning something blindly without an alternative solution and not thinking about the people who will suffer because of this decision is not a civilized move.
Thanx again for your informative comment. I look forward to more and more.
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