Was carefully opening my door at Kimo Market in Maadi where the driver had stopped to the side of the road. There was a car approaching in the opposite direction, I had enough margin to open the door without him bumping into me. There was a taxi behind us who had slowed down as we stopped, my friend was getting out from the door on the right and I was carefully opening the door behind the drivers seat.
Suddenly the idiotic traffic guy gets a burst of adrenaline, fancies himself as the next Bruce Willis in Die Hard 5 and decides to squeeze through at full speed. He banged into my door which I was carefully opening almost dislocating my shoulder with the force at which he hit it.
Fortunately with the grace of God, I suffered no more than a sore shoulder and broken fingernails from the impact. Can't say the same for the car though. Since he hit the door at the handle point where it was opening, the door isn't shutting completely although it can still be locked, but it has been bent out of shape, so it doesn't seal shut.
I'm just thanking God, that his rash behaviour happened a few seconds earlier, before I put my foot out of the door.
This is our first major accident in Cairo after more than a year and a half. We have had the regular bumps and scratches when the car has been left in parking but nothing as big as this. We are extremely careful passengers and we have a very safe and careful driver who has been with us for over a year. Unfortunately in Cairo, damage to you and your car is never in your control with all the other crazy drivers on the raod.
The taxi guys are quite a menace on the streets. Not all of them but most of them.
This particular taxi fiend just buzzed off with a noncommittal "maalesh" and little more than a scratch on his car ! (Nothing visible over all his pre-existing dents and scratches)
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