Daily Friend.
There are various things that Lebanon is known by, but when it comes to Lebanese traffic all over Lebanon,
the only proper sentence to say is welcome to Lebanon. Meet our daily friend, the highway traffic jam.
Welcome to the new and improved driving lessons on Lebanon’s highway. The instructions are as follows, park the car, turn it off, increase the volume of music and wait until it is your turn to pass. The traffic jam for example is due to a hole in the ground that was caused by a broken water pipe. After several cars became the victim of the massive hole in the ground, it was time to be fixed. However, instead of fixing the pipe, this paralyzing traffic jam was the mere result.
Furthermore, broken pipes are considered rare compared to the accidents that happen regularly on Lebanon’s highway.Whether it is drunk driving, speeding, or a mechanical malfunction, it all happens so fast. Accidents are one of the preliminary reasons to traffic jams. Not only because some accidents are actually in the middle of the road and are waiting for the fire department to help move what is left intact with the car, but also because people are curious enough to want to lend a hand which eventually everyone parks their car in the middle of the highway and leaves it to help the red cross. If that was not enough, the people who had not left their cars to be of great help would slow down to 10 kilometers per hour in order to take a picture and post it on Facebook.
In addition to accidents and construction sites in the highway in bright daylight, there is the inevitable winter which comes baring gifts known as rain. When winter comes and rain comes with it, Lebanon’s highway gets three-quarters submerged in water causing the diminutive cars to come across a difficulty as well as hefty cars at some point. However only the humongous six wheels and above trucks can survive the torturous rain. In addition to the rain, there is the fog, the hale, and the snow that causes cars to play bowling as the sled down the highway.
On the other hand, the sarcastic solution is the switch between some bridges into highways. For example, the removal of the Jal El-Deeb bridge. It was the talk of the town when people needed three to four hours to reach their destination. Moreover, during the removal, the clean up, and complete the highway as planned , the traffic was exactly the same and even worse.
In addition, Lebanese broadcasting corporation international (LBCI) creates a mobile application "Kif El Sei". An application provides to who downloaded the situation of the roads in Lebanon using comments and pictures uploaded by users.
The green button means there is no traffic at all. The orange one tells there is a bit traffic but cars are running slowly. The red mark signifies that there is a traffic. Finally the red button with a a line expresses that the road is closed, cars are turned off, and there no possibility to passon this road.
Then three other buttons are simultaneous attention works on the road, accident and a fire.
In the end, with all attempts in resolving the various issues concerning the traffic jams, it will always be an epic fail. The construction sites, the accidents, the weather and the sarcastic solution are the mere variables of the traffic in Lebanon. Therefore, our daily friend will always exist among us. Welcome to Lebanon.
