The fun of driving in the UAE - all is revealed.

An Emaratis Thoughts on driving in Dubai

Quote - "Slower Speed = Longer time to get to objective = higher chance of daydreaming and wandering off into another lane whilst unaware of your surroundings = Accidents = Traffic Jams"

Picked up on his blog. Of course he is just been sarcastic .. but for some drivers it is this attitude which causes any driving in traffic to be a total screw-up, dangerous and and times just f*en unbelievable. Unfortunatley he is not joking - this is the way it works for some people - the closer you drive to the person in front of you the better driver you are - DOH!

Let me sketch you a daily trip to work

• leave home and drive down residential street - have to swerve to avoid an accident with an idiot in a large Japanese 4x4 who either does not know there is two lanes or can't see through his darkened windows or is chatting away on his mobile or has a spare foot on the dash (or a combo of the above)
• Join a main street and have to apply take evasive acction as a person of the female gender who does not understand the right of way and will pull out in front of on comming cars when making a U-turn ... clearly no understanding of the laws of physics Jane?
• Then get onto out (in)famous SZ highway - now the fun starts - your Patrols and Land Cruisers with dark windows, drivers from the subcontinent in Sunnys, delivery trucks and mini buses all drive with totally incompatible styles with a good sprinkeling of other expats in luxurious and not so luxurous cars(moi!) driving like they are back home , all doing their best to add to the confusion.
• Some people insist on driving as fast as possible, weaving from lane to lane - and we do have up to six lanes in places. So if you want to move to a slower lane make sure there is not some idiots in fast cars traveling down the slower lane, at twice the speed everybody else is doing
• Others have got no idea what they are doing and are either tailgating you in the slow lane - this is where the one meter following distance comes in or are drifting aimlessly down the highway - permanently out of sync with the general traffic flow and changing lanes for no apparent reason without signaling.
• Just before reaching the office - the road narrows from six to three lanes - and here it is beter to relax, turn up the CD player and 'think of a happy place - hammmnnnn'. Contrary to normal standards - here it is custom to try and get to the lanes that are closing up - that way you can pass two more cars .... maybe it has something to do with the fact that queueing does not apply here.
• One rule everybody follows though, is never go to the slow lane to leave the highway - wait till the last moment, cut across six lanes causing maximum havoc (maybe to ensure they spend a little time as possible competing with the fast drivers for the slow lanes)
• Then leaving the high way to the office - of course slipways is not actually there to allow traffic to leave the road - it is there for idiots to use to jump a few places in the traffic.

... and of course then you get to the office - and do your best not to rip the head off of the first person who dares to say 'Good Morning!'.

Next installment - driving in city traffic in Dubai.

PS: The photograph is just for effect - it did not happen in the UAE - our accidents are much bigger - like everything here :)