The new driving system, a solution or a problem itself

  As a solution to the continuous traffic jams, and heavy traffic all throughout the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a new system of driving has been initiated in the city of Baghdad. The new system stipulates that cars with even license numbers can be driven a day, and the next day they can't, instead cars with odd license numbers are to be driven that day, but can't be driven the day next. This only applies to private cars, not public transportations, so the number of cars in the street is reduced heavily, but on what cost.

  This new system will make most people stay at their homes if they can't drive their cars, because most Iraqis use their cars to travel around, since the city is vast, and the public transportations are a mess, it takes a private car to move around, because taking taxis 3 or 4 times a week is just impractical. I have seen what other countries use for fighting traffic jams, for example in the US a method they use is to set up a high occupancy vehicle lanes, during rush hours. Those lanes can only be used by a bus, taxi or a car with more than 3 peoples inside. But this method is going to be very hard to follow in Iraq, because the traffic system is very fragile, and most checkpoints are more occupied with searching cars for bombs and weapons to bother themselves with lanes violators.

  While other practical solutions can be found, for example after the war, many cars have entered the country, meaning that many families now have more than one car in the house, and it is true, many families have cars for father, mother and sons. That means more cars on the road, and definitely trouble. One might consider allowing only one car for each household, to cut the number of cars. Another solution is the roads itself. Sometimes traffic conjugations happens when the road is blocked with concrete blocks so that only one lane is open, or in many cases, the road itself is very bumpy, and can't be taken fast, cars need to slow down and take it slow to cross it. Plus many roads has been blocked for military reasons after the war, that has turned the traffic from the big main roads, into the small side roads, sometimes those roads are only big enough for one car coming and one car going, not a good replacement for a 3 lanes come and 3 lanes go main street.

Note: This post has been emailed to my Email List subscribers.