"It's unbearable, it's unheard of!" fumes this sixty-year-old, who has nevertheless seen a lot in 14 years at the wheel of his taxi, crisscrossing the Greek capital, which has one of the largest car fleets in Europe.
Every day during rush hour, queues of vehicles several kilometres long form on Attiki Odos or Kifissos, the two ring roads of Athens, whose region, Attica, has 3,8 million inhabitants, more than a third of the population of Greece.
In the city centre, there are also two-wheelers weaving between cars, vehicles in double rows, the sound of horns and often the loud swearing that accompanies them.
According to Eurostat, Attica is among the top five regions of the European Union in terms of the number of vehicles per 1.000 inhabitants, with 1.080 cars.
Although they are very fond of four wheels, Athenians consider traffic jams to be the second biggest problem in their city, behind cleanliness, according to a recent survey by the Greek polling institute Opinion.
The traffic control center monitors traffic in the 66 city halls of the Athens region using 200 cameras and some 550 sensors across the city and manages around 2.000 traffic lights.
"A serious problem"
Traffic jams are "a serious problem" in Athens, acknowledges Konstantinos Iaveris, director of the center.
Installed twenty years ago for the Athens Olympic Games, this centre was a considerable innovation for managing road traffic.
A future upgrade will see the introduction of digital cameras with improved analysis and traffic lights equipped with sensors, its director assures.
But "I think we are at a very good level compared to what is expected of a European city," says this former rally driver, without however providing the slightest numerical comparison with other metropolises on the continent.
According to him, the major emergency is to create "a single authority for monitoring traffic" because currently each city hall is competent to apply "its own traffic plan", which moves traffic jams to surrounding areas.
Obsolete restrictions
The only regulation restricting the circulation of private cars in the city centre dates back to... 1979.
At the time, the measure was aimed at combating photochemical "smog", the brown cloud, called "nefos" by the Athenians which suffocated especially during summers with high temperatures.
So, depending on the last digit of their license plate, cars can enter the city center on even or odd days.
But the reaction of the Athenians was different from the expected result: many bought a second car, or even a third, making sure to have both even and odd numbers.
In the end, the car fleet grew even larger.
In addition, the measure includes various exemptions, including for electric and hybrid cars, taxis and cars used by doctors or diplomats.
"This system is no longer working," says Dimitrios Patsios, president of the Greek Association of Vehicle Importers (AMVIR). "Modern control measures in urban areas must be taken quickly."
Estimates of the number of cars circulating on Athenian streets vary.
According to ministerial data analyzed by AMVIR, there are more than 2,2 million cars in Attica, in addition to more than 16.000 taxis and tens of thousands of heavy goods vehicles.
According to the Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysohoidis, there are in fact 3,5 million cars circulating in the city centre every day.
The Ministry of Transport did not respond to AFP's requests.
Earlier this year, in an interview with AFP, the mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, acknowledged the inadequacy of public transport in his city.
The metro currently has only three lines. A fourth line is due to open by 2029 and the renovation of the bus fleet is underway with 950 new vehicles by the end of 2025.