I have often wondered why our taxis in Lebanon stop wherever they want to. The reason, I often thought, was that this is simply what they got used to doing and that the lack of order in the country has never been able to put a stop to it; or even worse, that the Lebanese “are just like that”.
Well, I just found out why and neither of those reasons named above are the correct one. I read in the magazine Al-Shahria, that the union for taxi drivers called a strike in 1970 to protest the fines taxis were receiving whenever they stopped to pick up or drop off passengers in the middle of traffic. They were successful in getting the police to lay off and to this day, taxis stop wherever they want, obstruct traffic and no one can say anything.
So, its not because we love chaos nor because we never thought of putting a stop to the practice; its because special interests in Lebanon can be very aggressive and single-minded to the point where they do not realize how order can actually be beneficial to everyone.
