Katie O’Donnell: Tales from petit taxis

As a sort of follow-up to the tales from the Toulouse métro, I present the Rabat instalment of my foreign public transport experiences: “Tales from petit taxis.”

Cheap, fast and more than a wee bit dangerous, Rabat’s bright blue petit taxis are the most entertaining way to get around the city. They come in varying states of disrepair, from the modern and spacious Dacias to the battered old Fiat Puntos, with their maxed-out mileage counters, meters that operate in Italian liras, and doors that literally come off in your hand (true story). On the inside, there’s usually a complete lack of seatbelts, a box of tissues on the dashboard (anyone know why? Answers on a postcard please), a sunshade featuring a picture of the King and Qur’anic verse blaring from the radio.

However, the most remarkable things about the petit taxis are their drivers. These guys manage to negotiate Rabat’s anarchic rush-hour traffic, relatively free from bumps or scrapes, without even so much as a glance into any of their mirrors. They’re also expert multi-taskers. In between all of that weaving, braking and swearing at other road users, some recite Classical Arabic poetry or offer you their son’s hand in marriage, whilst others give Arabic grammar lessons or call their daughter in Italy to tell her that they have an actual Italian in their backseat. Most of them are also courteous. If they don’t have enough change (the daily Moroccan struggle), they’ll pull over, walk out into the traffic and flag down another taxi to get it for you, and they’ll happily swerve across three lanes of cars to pick you up in the rain.

Unfortunately, not every taxi driver is that competent. There’s the standard creep whose hand ‘slips’ when he’s changing gear, or who offers to take you on a ‘tour’ of the city (that you’ve lived in for two months). There was the old man we narrowly avoided in Asilah, who was so stoned he could barely speak, and just stared blankly when we asked for Tangier, as if it was some mythical foreign land and not the bloody great city 31km up the road. Then, there was the guy who appeared to be doing a grand job of checking his mirror and his blind spot, before we realised he just had a twitch that was shifting the car a few inches across the lane every time it hit him.

If you’re looking to avoid the inhumane crush of the buses, and you love a good adrenaline rush with your morning commute, petit taxis are the way to go. Scottish taxi drivers just don’t quite match up (as hard as some of them might try).