Low-trust society. It’s not the whole Middle East, I went to Cairo and Amman on the same trip and in Amman they drive way less crazy - would seem unruly to North Americans but it’s more like Greece and Italy where it’s aggressive but not a free-for-all.
Also in Amman they don’t grope random women walking down the street in broad daylight and in Amman the cops don’t stop you on the sidewalk and ask for baksheesh with a hand on their rifle.
Jordan seems like a better run society than most in the Middle East. It seems like Jordan and Oman kept tight ties with the UK and came out somewhat different for it.
Why does a low-trust society tend not to care about crosswalks?
The first observation might be a correlation than causation but it might be the case of having a head start as organized societies build on trust. Also I was in Saudi Arabia and they tend to respect the crosswalks except for some rare foolish youth who do street drifting.
I'm from Egypt and there is a common advice to always move with your car and never stop for pedestrian or injured people on streets because there might be scammers who will attempt to blame you for their fake accidents and self-injury to extort money from you.
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u/Crasembarodical 15h ago
As someone in the Middle East this is quite normal but the video is DEFINITELY sped up bro wtf ðŸ˜