The Egyptian Highway Code

Thinking of driving in Egypt? Don’t! Unless you are considering shortening your life span considerably or have an uncontrollable urge to invest in car body repairs. Don’t take this to mean Egyptian drivers are unskilled: it actually takes great skill to avoid getting killed in the malestrom of automotive chaos that is Egyptian traffic. In fact, they have the lowest road death rate in Africa, not far behind the European average. What you need to understand is that they operate…

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The Chinese highway code

Eschewing the conventional wisdom of issuing road users with a booklet describing good practice for drivers and pedestrians, the Chinese authorities prefer the medium of roadside murals to convey the more salient points of the subject. This has the additional benefit of providing employment for semi-skilled artists rendered unemployed by advances in creative computer software. I have provided a convenient translation of the images for those unfamiliar with Chinese, cultural, automotive norms. 1. Headbutting is a particularly ineffective means of…

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