{"id":25375,"date":"2013-01-12T11:45:54","date_gmt":"2013-01-12T07:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=25375"},"modified":"2013-01-12T11:46:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-12T07:46:28","slug":"the-menace-of-mopeds-in-the-medina-need-for-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/the-menace-of-mopeds-in-the-medina-need-for-speed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Menace of Mopeds in the Medina: Need for Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"moped\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As much as I love the Medina, walking around it has been getting worse these last few years. It\u2019s not so much the crowds, that\u2019s part and parcel of a busy shopping area, and the occasional donkey traffic-jam is just everyday life in action \u2013 it\u2019s the only way you can get heavy things through the narrow streets, just as the hand-carts serve a very important role in keeping the shops and riads stocked up.<\/p>\n

The main problem now is the amount of moped and motor scooters that race far too quickly through what has, for over a thousand years been no more than a pedestrian area \u2013 long before we even thought of pedestrianisation.<\/p>\n

The traders at the Derb Dabachi, one of the main entrances to the souk, have got fed up of the noise, pollution, danger and stress of the mopeds and scooters that cause havoc in the area and have hung signs forbidding anyone to enter riding a bike or moped \u2013 and it\u2019s working! The signs invite riders to become pedestrians and walk alongside their transport until they leave the area. Let\u2019s hope other traders take the idea up and the Medina can once again become a \u2018motor-free zone\u2019.<\/p>\n

When I read about this, it brought to mind an article I\u2019d written on the same theme last year.<\/p>\n

Mowed down by a moped in the Medina<\/b><\/p>\n

When you are wandering through the souks, you spend half your time dodging mopeds. At least the mule carts and bikes travel at a sedate pace, but the mopeds are pretty nippy and it can give you a moment\u2019s nervousness to be staring the rider in the eyes at a distance and speed that makes you wonder which one of you is going to come off worse in the inevitable collision. Fortunately they usually nip past without doing any physical or emotional damage \u2013 but that\u2019s not to say it never happens.<\/p>\n

Nine years ago, on my first visit to Marrakech, I\u2019d just walked away from Jmaa el Fna and the handlebar of a moped brushed my side. It was summer, and I was wearing a lightweight shirt, and as I felt the handlebar touch me I turned into it to avoid anything serious happening. The rider was full of apologies, but I just patted him on the back, said something to the effect, \u201cIt\u2019s okay, no harm done,\u201d and he smiled and rode off. I turned to continue my walk, and felt a light breeze around my midriff, where the handlebar had torn my shirt right across the middle, leaving my stomach exposed. I hadn\u2019t felt a thing or, in all the hubbub, heard anything either. I was more amused than anything else that I\u2019d actually patted the chap on the back and parted with smiles, and here I was exposing my paunch for all of Marrakech to see.<\/p>\n

And today, when an actual collision between man and moped did occur, I still walked away with a semblance of a smile.<\/p>\n

I was ambling my way back to the riad I was staying at in the Sidi ben Slimane area, not taking a great deal of notice of anything, when I heard a moped rev up. I looked up, and about two metres away I saw a small boy on a moped careering towards me, and it was obvious by the panic in his eyes that he\u2019d only learned how to go forward, he hadn\u2019t quite got the hang of braking and steering yet.<\/p>\n

If it had been a scene in an Indiana Jones film, where the hero was walking through the souk and an evil assassin was attempting to run him down, although it would probably have been a Harley Davidson in that case, and not just a tiny 50cc Yamaha, Harrison Ford would have dived out of the way at the last second, probably doing a roll through piles of antiques lamps and collapsing the tent poles that supported the awning to the shop.<\/p>\n

Me, I\u2019m no Indiana Jones, I\u2019m neither quick witted enough or know how to do forward rolls to end a neatly executed dive, so I just stood there and watched the panic stricken ten year-old hurtle towards me. (Although to say \u2018hurtle\u2019 is probably gilding the lily a bit.) I made a half-hearted attempt to get out of the way but he hit my leg with the front wheel, which was probably the bit of steering assistance that turned him to the right out of any other harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

When I turned around he\u2019d managed to stop, and was on that point where he could well have burst into tears. Behind me I heard a man shouting at the lad, but as he didn\u2019t look at me it could well have been that he was pretty brassed off because the nipper had ridden the moped in the first place. I turned around, just as an old woman joined in the tirade. When I looked at the boy again he was even closer to tears, so I just waved my arms around a bit in a huffy sort of way and walked off.<\/p>\n

But I did have a bit of moped malarkey earlier in the day. I\u2019d gone to do an interview with a delightful young chap who is the only hand-made football maker in Morocco \u2013 more of that another day \u2013 but stupidly, I\u2019d left my recorder in the riad, on the other side of the Medina. By one of those delightful quirks of serendipity, he lived about three streets from the riad, and offered to take me there on his moped. It was great, and I got a chance to see life from the other side of the handlebars.<\/p>\n

We dodged and weaved through the crowded narrow alleyways, and there were times I thought my kneecaps were getting just that bit close to the walls. As we left the tighter alleys of the souk he took some of the wider streets, in deference to it being my first ride on the back of a moped, with a rear seat which clearly wasn\u2019t built for someone my size. It was great fun, although I think I\u2019d stick to a bike if I\u2019m piloting something through the souks myself in the future.<\/p>\n

This post was first seen on the Villa Dinari<\/a> web site.<\/em><\/p>\n

Derek Workman is an English journalist living in Valencia City, Spain \u2013 although he admits to a love of Morocco and would love to up sticks and move here. To read more about life in Spainvisit Spain Uncovered<\/a>. Articles and books can also be found atDigital Paparazzi<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEREK WORKMAN, VIEW FROM FEZ: Some traders and residents in the Medina have had enough of the speedy, ill-disciplined moped riders. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":25377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,90,337,235,5],"tags":[7962,1879,1744,18334,2139,1996,8925],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}