Will and Tiffany are out doing some last-day shopping now so I wanted to take a few minutes and record some observations I’ve made about Turkey. At the forefront of my mind is the traffic situation. It’s not so much bad, as utterly batfuck crazy. Let me explain.
First, for a city of 11,000,000 souls there are remarkably few traffic lights. By our count there are three. Every intersection flows with the efficiency of a Chinese fire drill except without the peace and quiet. Horns are blaring, people are yelling, but the cars aren’t getting anywhere. And this fiasco is repeated every 100 meters.
Last night’s taxi illustrated several qualities that Istanbul drivers possess, or don’t possess, depending on your viewpoint. W&T and I jumped in the first taxi to get a ride through the first rain of our trip to the Taxim area for some lively entertainment. The driver, realizing the inexorable progression of time working against the finite fare decided to get us there, post-haste. This meant using multiple lanes simultaneously to weave in between other moving cars, driving off the road onto the shoulder to make a pass, and even drive around and through the cars stopped for the red version of an Istanbul traffic light. And it seems that are howls of joy and terror only excited the driver and exacerbated the situation.
(Incidentally, we ended up in a club of which W&T will undoubtedly provide some observations upon their return. The women were beautiful, and dressed as sexy as any hooch in the Bay, but some implicit social contract defined their behavior. There was no flirting or dancing occurring. Tiffany was politely greeted with a “Are you here with someone?” and her positive reply was received with an “OK” and swift departure. Business as usual, I suppose.)
Back to the traffic, I should also point out that the notion of a lane is comical in this city. I’m not sure which is worse, but whether the road is packed with cars or absolutely empty the drivers straddle multiple lanes. Through the crowded areas the cars are also on the curb or impeding on the few sidewalks in existance.
And if all of this insanity hasn’t made you think that a pedestrian might be wise for remaining vigilant, I’d like to point out that most roads don’t have sidewalks. We often walk–and one time ate–on a road with light traffic. What a country.