The school has a fleet of buses. They number up to at least 33, although I think that they might only have about 24. This is a view of the back of the school, showing about half of them.
I get picked up each morning in one of the two staff buses. There is an early bus, half an hour after school finishes, and a later one for those doing sport, with meetings etc.
On the plus side it is free and reliable. It's also often quite sociable, because it is a good time to talk to staff from other departments.
On the downside it is slow and uncomfortable. Slow because it weaves across Amman picking up/dropping off other staff, and they are quite scattered. Uncomfortable because the roads are badly maintained and the drivers weave around like crazy. The hilly terrain doesn't help.
All the schools and universities have similar fleets. All the same sort of buses -- much smaller than NZ buses to fit the narrow spaces (the roads are wide enough, but the dodgy parking makes them narrow) -- and all in the same shade of yellow as ours. I see dozens as I wait for mine in the morning ferrying people across town. A lot of businesses have them too if they are sited away from public transport, as cars are expensive here.
I sit quite a long way back, partly because I get on late and partly to give the staff children the better seats at the front. It has the huge advantage that I don't get to see the mayhem going on out front. The school drivers are all the same in that they have got the "following" part of driving pretty much nailed, but apparently think that the "distance" part is intended to be as small as possible. Not every Jordanian drives like that, although it is quite common. The school drivers don't drive particularly fast, fortunately, but they still scare me.
Traffic flow is something to watch. The number of lanes is determined by the width of the road, not how many are marked. Traffic weaves in and out merrily. A particular favourite is turning from a centre lane despite the lane inside you going straight ahead. Pedestrians will wander across at any point -- the traffic in the photo above is not stationary. Vehicles travel from very slow to very fast in accordance with the impatience of the driver.
The give-way laws are a mystery, even to people who drive here. If traffic is going slow then everyone just pushes in however they can. If traffic is fast then it is essentially a game of chicken and it is rare to see a car stop to give way -- they merely slow down a bit and try to both fit. Our bus will not slow down on the entrance to roundabouts just because another car is already going round it, and at the last second one of them will slow slightly to allow the other in front.
Indicators can be used for indicating your intentions -- but only if what you are about to attempt is particularly awful. Putting down your cigarette, coffee or phone to use the indicator is regarded as stupid. That's what your horn is for! A short blast on the horn indicates "Watch out, I'm coming through in a vaguely illegal or stupid manner", "out of the way please, I wish to go faster than you", "the light turned green 50 milliseconds ago and you are still in my way" and "I'm a taxi, do you wish to be picked up?". You could easily hear a dozen blasts of the horn in a minute at an intersection. I've more or less stopped noticing them unless they are close. Oddly, you have to commit a particularly heinous act off cutting off or similar to get a horn blast because you have annoyed them.
I have it on good authority, however, that Jordan is not a patch on Egypt. People who have been there are consistent it is much worse. It almost makes me want to go there!
I get picked up each morning in one of the two staff buses. There is an early bus, half an hour after school finishes, and a later one for those doing sport, with meetings etc.
On the plus side it is free and reliable. It's also often quite sociable, because it is a good time to talk to staff from other departments.
On the downside it is slow and uncomfortable. Slow because it weaves across Amman picking up/dropping off other staff, and they are quite scattered. Uncomfortable because the roads are badly maintained and the drivers weave around like crazy. The hilly terrain doesn't help.
All the schools and universities have similar fleets. All the same sort of buses -- much smaller than NZ buses to fit the narrow spaces (the roads are wide enough, but the dodgy parking makes them narrow) -- and all in the same shade of yellow as ours. I see dozens as I wait for mine in the morning ferrying people across town. A lot of businesses have them too if they are sited away from public transport, as cars are expensive here.
I sit quite a long way back, partly because I get on late and partly to give the staff children the better seats at the front. It has the huge advantage that I don't get to see the mayhem going on out front. The school drivers are all the same in that they have got the "following" part of driving pretty much nailed, but apparently think that the "distance" part is intended to be as small as possible. Not every Jordanian drives like that, although it is quite common. The school drivers don't drive particularly fast, fortunately, but they still scare me.
Traffic flow is something to watch. The number of lanes is determined by the width of the road, not how many are marked. Traffic weaves in and out merrily. A particular favourite is turning from a centre lane despite the lane inside you going straight ahead. Pedestrians will wander across at any point -- the traffic in the photo above is not stationary. Vehicles travel from very slow to very fast in accordance with the impatience of the driver.
The give-way laws are a mystery, even to people who drive here. If traffic is going slow then everyone just pushes in however they can. If traffic is fast then it is essentially a game of chicken and it is rare to see a car stop to give way -- they merely slow down a bit and try to both fit. Our bus will not slow down on the entrance to roundabouts just because another car is already going round it, and at the last second one of them will slow slightly to allow the other in front.
Indicators can be used for indicating your intentions -- but only if what you are about to attempt is particularly awful. Putting down your cigarette, coffee or phone to use the indicator is regarded as stupid. That's what your horn is for! A short blast on the horn indicates "Watch out, I'm coming through in a vaguely illegal or stupid manner", "out of the way please, I wish to go faster than you", "the light turned green 50 milliseconds ago and you are still in my way" and "I'm a taxi, do you wish to be picked up?". You could easily hear a dozen blasts of the horn in a minute at an intersection. I've more or less stopped noticing them unless they are close. Oddly, you have to commit a particularly heinous act off cutting off or similar to get a horn blast because you have annoyed them.
I have it on good authority, however, that Jordan is not a patch on Egypt. People who have been there are consistent it is much worse. It almost makes me want to go there!
Nz and our silly traffic rules :-)
ReplyDeletePerhaps we need to experiment with free range driving
Somehow Jordan manages to have a lower death rate on the roads than NZ, so maybe we should
ReplyDelete