Each year, thousands of road accidents across Egypt cause serious injuries for some and reap the lives of others. In 2014, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) recorded a total of 14,403 road accidents which claimed the lives of 6,226 people and led to the injury of 24,154 others – meaning an average of 17 people die on Egyptian roads per day. Last April, my mother and I were yet another two additions to the 2015 toll of accidents. But what was even more frightening than the accident was how little value our well being and safety had amid the corruption which proved to overrule the law. On our way back from Alexandria to Cairo, my mother and I, along with the family driver, had just left the rest house doing a steady 90 km/hour on the Desert Road when the accident occurred. Ten minutes into our journey, another car speeding at 170 km/hour crashed into the back of ours causing us to drift off the road and crash straight into the concrete blocks on the side of the road. The impact left the front and back…
