Strange, Strange Lebanon

My country is a strange perplexing place that can prove mentally taxing for the foreigner visiting for the first time. In fact if you don’t mind the smell of diesel fumes up your nostril 24/7 and you think the heat, humidity and filthy language used on the roads as quaint and colorful, then at the very least you would have to be stumped by the very strange way we do things around here.

The strange thing about Lebanon is that we never throw anything out. The moment you see an old clattering, gas-guzzling, smoke-emitting, dinosaur Mercedes Benz with a feather attached to the bonnet you instantly know you are in Lebanon, home of the red-robin-Benz-tit a rare and endangered bird brain with a driving license, heaven help us!

Another thing we never seem to throw out: laws, not that we ever actually use them. You would think that a law baring women from wearing shorts in public would have been revoked due to global warming at least if for no other reason. A French General decided in 1941 to introduce this law on the books and there it remains to this day.

Another thing that is strange in this country is the love affair people have with the four wheel drive vehicle. If it’s big, ugly, bulky and shinny, the Lebanese will buy it. It baffles the mind sometimes; I mean you think of off-road vehicles when you go to places like Abu Dhabi, but not Lebanon.

People buying 4x4s should be taxed more than those buying fuel efficient sedans and the money used to build some proper roads wide enough to accommodate some of these ridiculous vehicles. Most of our Ottoman and French-Era road system outside the Capital and coastal strip is designed for horse and buggy not Hummers. My friend calls them ‘douchbag’ cars and I tend to agree.

Outside utilitarian military use, the Hummer has no place in a civilized urban setting in an age when a nuclear winter has not yet set in. The only excuse to own a Hummer is if you lived in some far flung and isolated spot. And as for really bad ideas, just look at what car designers are coming up with, shameless, I mean nothing is sacred to them any more. But if it has a 4x4 badge on it and it comes with a set of matching machine guns you would probably find a Lebanese to buy it.

The other day I saw what looked like an over inflated mini cooper. I remember the mini cooper when I used to go on vacation with my folks to Cyprus in the 1980s, we used to lease one, and I loved them. But the modern incarnation of the mini as a 4x4 is ridiculous and defeats the purpose of the mini. Dear genius car designer, its mini you ninny!

The four wheel drive vehicle in Lebanon is used primarily to push other road users around. Because it’s large and lumbering and mean looking, I suppose, they think they can use the 4x4 to intimidate road users and force them to give way. It does not always work, but it does make an impression and leaves a strong impact!

I make no secret that I dislike BMWs, but only because most people, here and in Dubai, who buy and drive these vehicles do so because they think the power and speed and performance compensates for their own total lack of driving skill. But worse still than a BMW sedan is a BMW X series 4x4, bad manners, poor driving skills and a total disregard for the safety of other road users combine to make this vehicle an exceptionally predatory metal monster on the road.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 14, 2011 at 5:03 PM

    Hani,

    There is indeed a reason people drive Hummers:

    http://scaryideas.com/i/4714.jpg

    ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hani M BathishJuly 18, 2011 at 12:22 PM

    Yes, I thought of that, but thought to focus more deeper insecurities that make them want to buy such a lumbering useless vehicle in the city, that is only useful as a bully weapon on the roads.

    But thanks for your comment and link

    ReplyDelete

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