I was looking for the Turkish airlines office on Hadda street from a dabob. The driver was speaking in the worst dialect that I have ever heard. I couldn’t understand a thing he was telling me and he couldn’t understand me. Damn this proper Arabic! Anyway, he was trying to explain something to me when a kid (12-16 years old, its so hard to tell the age of people here) jumped infront of the dabob. BAM! The driver slammed on the brakes, but he still hit him full on. The kid managed to turn slightly, but he still bounced off the dabob in a rather frightening way. The driver started to yell (I still couldn’t understand a word) and the kid popped up and started to yell back. I estimate that we were going about 35mph when he hit the brakes, so he hit him going about 10-15 mph. Like I said, it was pretty scary. The hitee was grasping his side as he was giving the driver what-for, I’m sure that he had at least cracked some ribs if not broken a few. After yelling for a while, the driver sped off down the road, visibly shaken. I really thought it was the kid’s fault and attempted explain it to him, but we quickly got back into the “What?” mode of conversation.
The kicker for me was that as scary as it was, no one seems to think it’s a big deal. “Yeah, that happens sometimes..” is the typical response. WHAT? That kid could have been killed, just falling to the pavement like that is dangerous let alone being HIT BY A MINI BUS! I can’t believe how casual people are treating this. On the other hand, I have talked to several people that have witnessed fatal accidents. I’ve never seen one of those actually happen, just the aftermath. Traffic is scary here, thank God it’s usually slow…