The White and Black ones don't stop for Pedestrians

One thing about living in a city is the constant movement. Not only are there people, cars, large amounts of cash and general stuff moving in and out of the city limits; there is a mass of material, people and junk that spends its life just moving around the city. If your lively hood depended on being able to move fast from one place to another you'd get rather impatient when someone is interfering with your means of making money. So naturally when a widget is having to wait in traffic for longer than 4 1/2 seconds it gets annoyed and tries to find a faster way. Then another widget sees the first going faster and says "Laa Zachma!" When you add fourth and fifth widget to the constipation things get painfully slow. Since Egypt is so amazingly old and the normal strictures of civilized society have been deracinated for several thousand years the term "Road rage" isn't used. Its the norm.
Taxi drivers should be noted as being particularly ruthless; not only for their driving but also in fare collection and customer acquisition. Historical note: In the mid seventies the president decided that Cairo needed to have a standardized taxi aesthetic and fare. Nearly all cabs that were put into service were Peugeot 504 series and had a mechanical meter. 30 years later all of the taxis are frayed around the edges and the meters are broken. The most common fare proposed to me is "Fifty Pound. Good price since first time Egypt." (50 pounds is about US$8.75) Enough to buy a large meal at US McDonald's? Here that is enough to go from Giza to the Airport with good tip; two of the furthest destinations apart from each other. To go from school to my hostel? "50 pound good price for husband and grapes! (I think he meant for a man and his family)" So naturally I have to negotiate the price down. If you're patient enough you can always get a good price since there 1/3 of the cars in the city are taxis. So after four rounds of "Hamza" "Laa Ashrah" "Hamza" the cabbie finally gives in and accepts a 10th of what he originally asked. So I'm happy and the he is wondering why a white guy is paying 90 cents to go across town.
There are no seat belts. There are no airbags. There is driver with anger issues and a 2000 pound French car that was build during the cold war. The first few times there was also an sweaty American clinging to anything resembling a handle so that he wouldn't be thrown dramatically through the windshield when the very light car ran into something with more mass and less inertia. Now that Ive acclimated to the lack of inhibition and air conditioning I am much less worried that any second I could be t-boned by a 4 ton bus. Atleast I don't have to worry if my driver is drinking on the job or not.