  We establish the applicability to transport phenomena in the cuprate
superconductors of a nearly antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid (NAFL) description
of the magnetic interaction between planar quasiparticles by using it to obtain
the temperature dependent resistivity and Hall conductivity seen experimentally
in the normal state. Following a perturbative calculation of the anisotropic
(as one goes around the Fermi surface) quasiparticle lifetimes which are the
hallmark of a NAFL, we obtain simple approximate expressions for the
longitudinal, $\sigma_{xx}$, and Hall, $\sigma_{xy}$, conductivities which
reflect the magnetic crossovers seen experimentally as one varies the doping
level and temperature. We present a simple phenomenological model for the
variation in mean free path around the Fermi surface, and use this to extract
from experiments on $\sigma_{xx}$ and $\sigma_{xy}$ quasiparticle lifetimes in
the hot (strongly coupled quasiparticle) and cold (weakly coupled
quasiparticle) regions of the Fermi surface which are consistent with the
perturbation theory estimates. We improve upon the latter by carrying out
direct numerical (non-variational) solutions of the Boltzmann equation for
representative members of the YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ and
La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ systems, with results for transport properties in
quantitative agreement with experiment. Using the same numerical approach we
study the influence of CuO chains on the a-b plane anisotropy and find results
in agreement with experimental findings in YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$.
