quote:Originally posted by germanjulia: so did you ever try to learn it?
NOPE, NEVER WAS ON MY WAY OR HAVE EVER NEEDED IT BESIDES GERMAN PEOPLE DON'T LOOK THAT APPEALING TO ME, I AM SORRY MEAN NO OFFENSE AT ALL, BUT I NEVER FOUND SOMEONE WHO LIKES FRENCH PEOPLE CAN LIKE GERMANS TOO, I JUST DON'T KNOW WHY
quote:Originally posted by Corvinous: BUT I NEVER FOUND SOMEONE WHO LIKES FRENCH PEOPLE CAN LIKE GERMANS TOO, I JUST DON'T KNOW WHY
maybe cos the french don't find the germans very "appealing" either! lol. well well, have you aver been to germany or have you had a (close) german friend? then you would see that germany is more that just lederhosen and sauerkraut!
Posts: 457 | From: Any Questions? | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by germanjulia: maybe cos the french don't find the germans very "appealing" either! lol. well well, have you aver been to germany or have you had a (close) german friend? then you would see that germany is more that just lederhosen and sauerkraut!
MY COUSINS ARE GERMANS, MY UNCLE IS MARRIED TO A GERMAN LADY 20 YEARS AGO
BUT NEVER TALKED WITH THEM MORE THAN FEW TIMES N FOR VERY SHORT TIME ... THEY LIVE THERE N COME BACK A WEEK EVERY 5-7 YEARS
quote:Originally posted by Corvinous: MY COUSINS ARE GERMANS, MY UNCLE IS MARRIED TO A GERMAN LADY 20 YEARS AGO
BUT NEVER TALKED WITH THEM MORE THAN FEW TIMES N FOR VERY SHORT TIME ... THEY LIVE THERE N COME BACK A WEEK EVERY 5-7 YEARS
i know you wouldn't tell me where they live, so i'm just guessing right now: berlin?? the capital. just say yes or no if you never had contact to any german, then go and visit the country, if you like. foreign people have told me that, if they think of germans, they always see fat old men drinking beer and wearing leather pants! lol! what an idea!
...that's not very realistic. besides they only wear leather pants in the south.
[This message has been edited by germanjulia (edited 26 October 2005).]
Posts: 457 | From: Any Questions? | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by germanjulia: i know you wouldn't tell me where they live, so i'm just guessing right now: berlin?? the capital. just say yes or no if you never had contact to any german, then go and visit the country, if you like. foreign people have told me that, if they think of germans, they always see fat old men drinking beer and wearing leather pants! lol! what an idea!
...that's not very realistic. besides they only wear leather pants in the south.
[This message has been edited by germanjulia (edited 26 October 2005).]
I AM AFRAID I AM NOT INTERESTED AT THE SAME TIME I WISH TO GET BURRIED IN FRENCH SOIL ONE DAY MY BEST WISH ..!
Stakeholders joing together to try to improve Egypt’s road safety record
Economists often sound obtuse when they talk about the things that need to be done away with to encourage a country’s chance of attracting more foreign direct investment, particularly when they dwell on unnecessary red tape, poor regulations and corruption, none of which are concepts easily quantifiable on a company’s balance sheet.
But for firms with trucking fleets, for example, potholes, unclear road signs, rising fuel costs and tens of thousands of uneducated drivers cramming the nation’s roads are all very real hazards with clear impacts on the corporate bottom line.
At International Event Partners’ second-annual Road Safety and Traffic Management conference, representatives from the government, the World Health Organization, NGOs and private-sector energy companies promoted a cooperative agenda to reduce road fatalities and lost business productivity caused by preventable accidents.
Organizers specifically highlighted the plight of pedestrians, who are most vulnerable to traffic accidents and are typically in lower income brackets. An accident that injures the breadwinner in a low-income family may drive it to poverty, further depressing the economy.
Heading for a crash
Roughly 88% of all fatal road accidents occur in developing countries, although they own only 20% of the world’s motor vehicles, says Assistant for the Minister of Interior (Traffic Department) General Sherif Gomaa.
Participants cited a combination of factors as stalling economic growth, including a lack of education from a young age about best driving practices (including the need to abide by speed limits and wear seat belts) and poor traffic management, especially when it comes to coordinating vehicle traffic with pedestrians, cyclists and animals.
Egypt has one of the highest road-accident rates in the world, according to a 2005 report released by the Ministry of Transport: “Six thousand people die each year as a result of road accidents in Egypt, and the annual economic loss caused by road loss is at least LE 3 billion, which equals 3% of the country’s gross domestic product.”
General Mohamed Fouda, head of the Roads and Bridges Sector at the Ministry of Transport, says human error causes 75% of accidents, mostly due to excessive speeding, and that vehicle problems account for 20% and environmental factors cause a further 5% of all accidents.
From the environmental standpoint, the nation’s road infrastructure is struggling to keep up with rising traffic volume: the number of highway trips increased from 173 million per year in 1992 to 335 million in 2005, Fouda said.
Much of the problem has to do with attitudes, experts say. Lax vehicle inspections as a part of re-registration procedures, which currently include an external body check and very superficial overview of the engine and brakes, helps explain the rate at which vehicle malfunctions cause accidents. Worse, Fouda estimates that less than 1% of all cars regularly stop to allow pedestrians to cross streets.
The value of a life
Academics at the conference noted that developing countries lose $70-100 billion every year from traffic accidents, a sum considerably larger than the total value of the aid they receive as a group. Moreover, 57% of road fatalities claim those aged 17-45, eliminating people from the workforce during the very years in which they are most productive —and during which they’re supporting families.
“Crash-prevention is a way to prevent people from entering poverty,” says Dr. David Bishai, associate professor at John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Bishai’s research estimates the effects of state and local policies on individual health. He has conducted studies that examine the cost effectiveness of interventions to improve pre-hospital care for injured patients within the first ‘golden’ hour after a person suffers a major trauma as well as to improve primary injury prevention. In his most basic model, the state supports a campaign to train volunteers, bus and taxi drivers in first aid and safe transport, which can save up to 370 lives a year and costs $40,000 per million people.
While recognizing the need for improved health care, Egyptian officials felt a more immediate improvement could be made by focusing on the ‘Three Es’ of accident prevention: enforcement, education and engineering.
Senior Interior Ministry officers and international visitors alike promoted a well-marked network of speed radar and camera systems as a way of monitoring and preventing speeding; the ministry is currently studying such a system. It is also now piloting international environmental safety standards at electronic exhaust inspection stations in Alexandria as a new way of inspecting the health of vehicles to prevent malfunctions that could cause accidents.
In the past few years, the ministry has also introduced a written examination for those taking their first driving test to make certain they have a basic awareness of traffic laws and signage.
3M, a multinational chemical company that produces traffic signs and vehicle registration systems, is one of the key partners in making engineering improvements to the nation’s road network. Rik Nuyttens, European regulatory affairs manager at 3M Europe’s traffic systems division, says that since 90% of the decisions humans make are based on what they see, one of the quickest ways to improve road conditions is to put up signs.
Al-Moataz Bellah Selmy, sales and marketing supervisor for display and graphics at 3M, says the company launched an initiative two years ago with the Roads and Bridges Authority to use reflective materials on highway signs. These can be clearly seen all over Cairo and have recently been introduced in Luxor.
“The signs are now designed according to international specs,” he says. “A color-coding system makes signs even easier to read [highways are in green and tourist attractions are on brown boards].” (See sidebar)
New safety measures seem to be paying off.
“Only 16 out of every 10,000 registered vehicles were involved in a traffic accident this past year, down from 18 the previous year,” says Gomaa, while Fouda cited a 37% decrease in road fatalities since 2001.
Leading the way
Major corporations including ExxonMobil, Halliburton, BG, Schlumberger and Shell had big presences at the conference and the Traffic Egypt 2006 product and services exhibition that accompanied it. Their presentations promoted the high level of driver’s training they provide their staff as they operate some of the largest and most dangerous vehicles on the road, transporting highly flammable oils and natural gases.
“Companies like ExxonMobil, Halliburton, BG have a reputation and they [apply strict safety standards] for their own employees traveling on the road and on business trips,” Nuyttens said. “These are people that [they] have trained and have a lot of knowledge [they] are protecting their investments as well as making sure the material they are transporting gets there safely — without harming anyone on the way to its final destination.”
Nuyttens believes one of the biggest challenges facing Egypt, besides driver behavior, is reporting traffic accidents and recording fatalities in a uniform way. This will help map out the areas and intersections with Egypt’s highest concentration of traffic accidents.
“A lot of countries map out black spots,” he says. “If you can neutralize spots with high accident rates, it has an immediate impact on road safety. With a little bit of money, you could put up signs to at least warn people that this is a dangerous zone so they can pay attention this has an immediate impact on behavior.” It’s also a cheaper solution that building roundabouts, bridges or erecting traffic lights.
Attendees also stressed the importance of the media, saying it’s time the press started covering traffic accidents in a more prominent manner.
Theo Holtzheuser, a former police officer and representative of the international Road Safety Network Association, says movies and commercials glorify “fast and furious” driving, and not enough attention is paid to traffic accidents and their causes in the news.
posted
I'm a very lousy driver myself, (which is good by Egyptian driving standards). I guess anyone who drives in this country ends up picking up their bad habits. I've never driven anywhere else though so I don't know what it's like there, but I keep thinking I'll probably get my license taken once I step into the car for an offence that is totally normal in Egypt without knowing it lol.
Here's another annoying thing. What with those jingle tunes that every taxi has these days. Everywhere I go I keep hearing them all they way till they got stuck in my head.
Posts: 169 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
intresting topic, an American friend of mine commented on driving in Egypt she said :"Driving in Egypt is like an unregisterd nascar race."
Posts: 517 | From: snake city | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by focus683: I'm a very lousy driver myself, (which is good by Egyptian driving standards). I guess anyone who drives in this country ends up picking up their bad habits. I've never driven anywhere else though so I don't know what it's like there, but I keep thinking I'll probably get my license taken once I step into the car for an offence that is totally normal in Egypt without knowing it lol.
Here's another annoying thing. What with those jingle tunes that every taxi has these days. Everywhere I go I keep hearing them all they way till they got stuck in my head.
lol that's exactly why i'm worried about driving in sydney Posts: 4446 | From: Egyptian in Sydney | Registered: Mar 2005
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i just couldnt figure out why theres no T junctions in sharm. it seems so daft!!
Posts: 5642 | From: hellonearth.myfastforum.org Forum Index | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I just got back from my first visit to Egypt and out of my country USA. The first day in Cairo i was bracing to crash the whole way to the hotel. Then we leave hotel and come across a man, pedestrian, hit by a car, laying in the middle of a fairly busy road in Cairo, with 2 huge rocks in front of him, he was unconscience at first, then started moaning, his pants were knocked off down to almost his knees. I guess the rocks were there as a speed bump so no one would run over twice!!!!!!
Posts: 96 | From: usa | Registered: Jan 2006
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