I rented a car in Egypt for some reason. You get used to the local quirks over time, but at first it was really uncomfortable. Traffic during the day is bearable. Good visibility gives you time to react in advance to what's happening on the road. Twice I got held up and experienced firsthand all the joys of night driving.

Local drivers have mastered two headlight modes: off and high beams. Hardly anyone uses anything else. And even outside the city, where the road has no lighting at all, you'll find guys driving in complete darkness. Sometimes they decide to show signs of life and flash their high beams right in your face. In the city, more people drive without lights, but at least there are some street lamps there.

Headlight color apparently isn't regulated, and some car enthusiasts think it's a great idea to make their front lights a different color. Green, blue, purple—okay, fine. But when front lights suddenly look like rear tail lights and come barreling at you head-on, your sense of comfort just evaporates.

Highways outside the city are often physically divided for different directions. But don't relax: the division doesn't mean at all that no one will drive toward you in your lane. Moreover, it doesn't mean that a couple kilometers down the road, you won't be flying the wrong way yourself. Road construction zones are everywhere. They don't put up any signs, as a matter of principle. You just figure it out because the road ahead suddenly ends. Sometimes they'll park a truck there. Then it drives onto the oncoming lane. And after that, it's impossible to tell when the construction zone ended. People just return to their lane wherever they feel like it. So everyone ends up driving in all directions at once. Safety.

There are barely any crosswalks anywhere, so people cross wherever they feel like it. Drivers don't yield to pedestrians, and pedestrians don't expect them to. When you try to yield, you break the system for everyone and other road users stop understanding what's going on and what to do. It's technically possible to cross, but usually when you do, someone hits the gas.

Most bikers in the city ride without helmets. Uber has a bike option. Almost certainly, not only won't the passenger be offered a helmet, but the driver won't be wearing one either. Outside the city, they sometimes wear helmets. The philosophy is roughly: "if the Almighty has decided you're to die today, a helmet won't save you."