Iranian Peykans on road to nowhere

There is no word that can convey the traffic nightmare that plagues Tehran.

But maybe one should be invented for it, something like clausto-congestion or meta-traffic.

Imagine Formula One-style race with three million ordinary cars, many of them decrepit, all jostling for position and taking lethal risks.

Most of the cars are an Iranian replica of the homely Hillman Hunter, that boxy stalwart of the 1960s. It is known here as the Peykan, which means "arrow" in Farsi. Swift and sleek it is not but Iranians manage to keep them running for years.

With so many old Peykans belching out fumes, a thick soup hangs over the city, obscuring the majestic mountains in the distance.

Stuck a throng of steel boxes, there is plenty of time to chat with taxi drivers. The elderly ones are resigned to the congestion, but they resent having to hold down two jobs to fend off the effects of inflation. Bitter about the theocracy that celebrated its 25-year anniversary this week, they blame their lot on the "mullahs."

Believing have some special insight as a foreign journalist, they often ask me what will happen, when will the regime fall?

My a shrug, disappoints them as we inch our way up the motorway.

The younger taxi drivers try to force their way through traffic jams with aggressive tactics, but they get stuck in the same molasses.

Unlike older drivers, they are not interested in talking politics. They would rather drown out everything with their car stereos cranked up with Iranian pop music or Pink Floyd. They talk about getting visas to emigrate to Canada or to work across the Gulf in Dubai, where there are coveted jobs and more freedom.

The conservative clerics who rule Iran could cure the traffic problem if they built more public transport or raised the price of petrol, which at US$0.11 a liter is virtually free. But no one wants to take away a subsidy that many Iranians feel entitled to. So the congestion and the pollution keep getting worse.

On Friday, there will be parliamentary elections but few people in Tehran will be voting. More than 2,000 moderate candidates have been barred from appearing on the ballot.

Stuck their cars, passing by posters of conservative candidates, many wonder when the congestion will ease and when the traffic light for democracy will turn green.