I think taxi drivers in any country tend to span a huge range of driving aggression, desire for conversation, desire to rip passengers off, and road rage. My experience so far here is that the driving aggression is pretty consistently high, desire for conversation is pretty variable depending on time of day (and oddly enough, not as dependent on English skill), desire to rip passengers off is directly proportional to the passenger behavior in the first 2-3 seconds of waving down the taxi, and road rage isn't too incredibly bad.
I've gotten used to the driving aggression, as it's kind of a more chaotic version of New York City driving, with more horns and cutting off, but also way more driving skill. Drivers really don't get on the road without knowing the dimensions of their car to, it seems, within +/- 2 mm, and even though there are a heck of a lot of deaths due to road accidents, there would be exponentially more if drivers weren't so used to the chaos. It's consistently uber-aggressive, with little "no man, you go first" politeness, but at least everyone's on the same page.
The desire to rip passengers off is really as much as they think they can get away with, and translates to really any country where people can rip someone off. After I first arrived and had to move from the Conrad to a hostel downtown, carrying big luggage and trying to get a taxi from the concierge at the Conrad was poor idea. Concierge said the fare wouldn't be more than 20 LE, which I figured was b.s., but I didn't feel like dragging my luggage down to the street, play frogger with it in tow, and then catch a normal taxi. Paid 20 LE for the ride. My normal commute is slightly further than that ride, and I pay 5 LE each way, which is a pretty fair fare. I just wave down a taxi, try and spit out a few words indicating my destination (and speaking as little english as possible), know the appropriate fare range, and just hand it to the driver as I'm exiting the car at the destination, with zippy discussion of the fare.
Usually the discussion starts like this: As I get in the car, I'll say sabah el-kheyr (good morning/day) or misa eh-kheyr (good evening) depending on the time of day, he'll respond and kinda give me a curious look in the rear-view mirror. Then, possibly depending on how much I stuttered or slaughtered the pronunciation, he'll just start talking to me in Arabic and I'll smile and respond with randomly placed aywa's (yes) and ilham d'illeh (praise God/Allah, or what I use in place of "woo-hoo!"), insha'allah (God/Allah-willing, or what I use for "I have no idea if that's remotely feasible, but I hope so, worth a shot") until I get a confused look. That usually takes about 5 seconds.
He may also ask me where I'm from. I've found that saying "America" usually confuses people, makes them ask me again, or insist that there must be another more correct answer, pointing at my face. I've just taken to saying "China" as my first response now, as I don't speak enough Arabic to properly explain that I am a Chinese-American. If speaking to someone face-to-face, sometimes I'll try with a combination of English, Arabic, and pantomime. I'll say America, use Arabic yes/no's to the next few questions, then try and say "my blood is from China". I usually do this by tapping the vein in my arm that I usually use for giving blood, in the bend of my arm on the opposite side from the elbow. Then I say "China". That seems to satisfy them.
There's a potential issue though - I also use the same arm-vein-tapping motion when I'm joking about heroin or injectable drugs, and that ALSO gets people to understand what I'm trying to say. Thinking about it now though, I may be communicating as part of introductory conversation, "I don't know where I'm from at this moment, but I know that in America, they get all their heroin from China." My smile and nod then indicates that I really, really like heroin. Either way, it's working to introduce myself.
Oh yeah, road rage. Rambled for a bit. So I didn't think road rage was too incredibly bad....until I met this driver in Giza. The whole drive back, his head kept drifting to the left, then snapping back to face forward. It wasn't, however, a downwards drift indicating he was falling asleep; I'm very well acquainted with that motion. It was more like he was a lion watching a gazelle run across the road (or field), quickly lost interest, then saw a really fat, legless antelope asleep directly in front of him. It was really peculiar, and I kept trying to guess if he was on drugs or something, and if so, which drug.
His driving didn't seem erratic (compared to the norm in Cairo), so I didn't really pay much attention....until he started sparring with another driver. I think the other car, a regular non-taxi car with a guy as his wife in the front seats, cut my taxi off in a more aggressive way than usual, which pissed off my driver. Unfortunately, they were going in the same direction, so they ended up taking turns cutting each other off. That didn't bother me, as it was pretty much normal driving, albeit with a single target to cut off instead of just everybody. The driver, however, was getting really, really pissed off, and right when we were at an intersection about to get on a large bridge, he REALLY cuts the other car off, looking like he was trying to hit him. The other car stopped about 10 cm from my door, so that I couldn't even open it; hooray skillful drivers not maiming and crushing me.
Much to my continued surprise, my driver then gets out of the car and immediately attacks the other driver, who'd also gotten out of the car at this point. Now usually in the U.S., there'd be an exchange of words and yelling, and then maybe physical violence/gunfire. The taxi driver pretty much escalated from yelling to shoving as he was approaching the other driver, and the started tussling right in the middle of the street, cars beeping everywhere, with a crowd quickly gathering from the passerby. I was pretty amused and mildly concerned, so stayed in the taxi and just watched the devolving drama through the rear window. The two yelled and shoved and grabbed shirts for a bit, and other guys from taxis and the sidewalk quickly pulled them apart and tried talking to them, who were both snarling and spitting at this point. It was interesting watching other taxi drivers trying to talk some sense into my taxi driver; I wonder what type of feeling of community they have. The two tried attacking each other multiple times as others held them back, but oddly enough it didn't seem like it was too extraordinary a scene. Sure, it blocked a lot of traffic and there were people standing around watching, but just as many people kept walking by as cars drove around the scene.
I didn't start getting concerned until the crowd had successfully disengaged the taxi driver from the other guy, and the taxi driver started walking back into my taxi, still (presumably) swear ing at the other driver and occasionally trying to re-engage the fight. At this point I decided I was close enough to my hostel to walk (which I was), and kinda didn't want to be in a vehicle with this guy at the helm. I popped out of the door on the other side and paid him since he'd gotten me most of the way back, and actually tried to console him, mainly out of curiosity to see what his reaction would be. I patted him on the shoulder and said "ok? ok? calmate" which in retrospect, is Spanish for "calm yourself" and really had little place in the conversation on a Cairo bridge. He was actually quite friendly with me (since I'd paid him) and got back in the car. I walked to the sidewalk and tried to take a picture of the scene, rather unsuccessfully. The grey car in the middle was the other car, and you can still kiiinda see the guys in the street who broke up the fight.
I chatted a bit with some of the bystanders, mainly pointing at the cars and saying "magnoon", which means "crazy" in Arabic. They probably said something similar, I said "itneen magnoon" for "two crazy [people implied]", they likely replied with something similar, and I walked back to the hostel (away from the hostiles, man look at that wordplay). Chatting with some people later, although this incidence wasn't too common, it certainly wasn't unheard of either.Note to self: do not learn any driving habits in Cairo, and treat them like raw meat or goat poop: under no circumstances should they be allowed back into the States.
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