Red Light, Green Light

Marrakesh traffic is amazing. It is this well-oiled machine in which mopeds, taxis, and Fiats navigate around each other at amazing speeds, largely ignoring the suggested yellow lines on the road.

Red lights are sometimes heeded by moped drivers, though not usually. This makes crossing the street an interesting challenge for pedestrians. One can pick out the Moroccans from the French and especially from the Americans.

When the red light changes to green, all motorists honk repetedly. Moroccans, who are pretty liberal with their time (when I ask Salma's mom to wake me at 6:30 a.m., she wakes me up at 7:15), are suddenly impatient when it comes to a green light. If you are not out of there way within a millisecond, they begin to honk the horn. Even three cars back, drivers expect the other cars to be out of the way the second the light turns green.

Posted 02:12 PM (GMT)