Wednesday, 13 August 2008

A rant about Dubai traffic


The general standard of driving here is unspeakably bad and so, so dangerous. On every trip to or from work, like most regular drivers I'll see someone in the traffic do something so stupid or dangerous that it beggars belief. I've had to throw some basic rules of driving out the window (not literally of course though there's plenty of stuff that gets thrown out car windows here too but that's another story).

1. Don't even think about allowing what we would consider to be a safe travelling distance between you and the car in front, because that gap will immediately be filled by a couple of Nissan Sunnys and a minibus.

2. The concept of staying in your lane is apparently foreign to many drivers in Dubai and it seems that indicators are an optional extra.

3. Speed isn't always the issue, there's at lot of scary stuff happens at 15kph outside Choithrams at Garhoud most evenings.

4. The whole situation is not helped by the constant road changes, the poor signage (probably at any given time at least 50% of drivers on Dubai roads are lost) and of course lane markings that lie! Follow the lane markings and more often than not they'll put you into a wall, a red and crash white barrier or even opposing traffic.

However, on the positive side, cars are relatively cheap, if I was at home, I couldn't afford to run The Lovely Madame. In Dubai I pay in dirhams what it would cost me in dollars to fill the tank in NZ or Aus.

3 comments:

  1. THey don't use their indicators they use their hazard lights instead because they could be turning in either direction.

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  2. hello I am from Montreal and I am moving to dubai on the 5th of September it will be my first trip over there...
    as I was reading your blog you spoke about the price of gas...can you tell me how much is the price of a liter of gas in dirham?
    I am going to dubai and surrounding country's to teach new technologies in General motors cars...


    thank you

    Regards

    Yves
    yraces@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Yves

    The cost of petrol in Dubai is 6.5 dirhams per Imperial gallon (not US gallon).

    ReplyDelete