Deadly actions with minimal consequences

Very much in keeping with the subtitle of this blog: In February, two young men, both 19 year old Emiratis, were racing their hotted-up 4x4s in Al Khawaneej which is a residential suburb here in Dubai. According to Traffic Prosecution, the two students had "made modifications to their cars for acceleration and enhancing engine performance." They were doing 130kph in a 60 kph zone when one of them hit a car, killing the other driver. High speed racing in a suburban street.
Do these young men have to take responsibility for killing someone due to their reckless disregard and negligence? As if!  It seems they're old enough to have the fast cars and drive them recklessly but apparently not old enough to take the consequences of their actions. So, what’s the punishment?

1. 3 months in jail.  This is the same sentence given to the ‘sex on the beach’ couple.  Strange, I would have thought that killing someone was a more serious crime but there you go...;
2. A 500 dirham fine each. 500 dirhams converts to the grand sum of $147;
3. Between them they have to pay 200,000 dirhams in blood money to the family of the dead driver. 200,000 dirhams converts to $59,111;
4. They are both banned from driving for 1 year (yeah right).

The drivers are not kids, these are 19 year olds who, one assumes possibly incorrectly, are old enough to know right from wrong, who know that suburban streets have other cars on them and who have the resources to 'soup up' their cars and know the horsepower that will result. One of the drivers also had his licence endorsed as requiring glasses to drive but he chose not to wear them.
Meanwhile the RTA continues to tell Dubai motorists that they are targeting dangerous driving, but what’s the real message that some drivers are getting? The message is that they can do what they like because they’ll get away with it.

Meanwhile, over in Qatar cars are being abandoned with abandon....

Qatar sees huge hike in abandoned cars
From ArabianBusiness.com Sunday, 15 February 2009

Doha has seen a 791 percent increase in the number of cars being abandoned on its streets and outskirts, it was reported on Sunday. The city’s municipality has revealed that in January this year 1,448 vehicles were deemed to be left unclaimed. This is a huge hike on the 183 found abandoned in January 2008, according to local Arabic daily Arrayah and reported in Qatar daily Gulf Times. A designated yard for abandoned vehicles was full to capacity, director of Doha Municipality, Ibrahim Al Malky told the newspaper.

“There is practically no space left because vehicles are already stockpiled one over the other,” he revealed.There was an urgent need for a coordinated effort to allocate a new areas for the cars, Al Malky added.No reason for the increase was given. However, the findings come a week after Dubai’s authorities denied that it was seeing more cars abandoned at the airport as a result of expatriates fleeing the UAE on the back of the economic crisis.

Only 11 cars had been left at Dubai International Airport in over a year, confirmed lieutenant general Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, chief of the Dubai police department. Clarification on the number of abandoned cars came after repeated local and international media reports that the figure had hit 3,000.

The municipal officials in Doha dealing with public hygiene and cleanliness periodically monitor the number vehicles found abandoned on the city streets. They place stickers on such vehicles and photographs are taken and forwarded to the public cleanliness department which is responsible for removing them to the junkyard.

Another "misunderstanding": Only 11 cars left at Dubai airport in past year

Saturday, 07 February 2009
From ArabianBusiness.com

Dubai police said just 11 cars have been left at the airport in the past year not 3,000. (This is surprising because only two days ago, the following quote was in the paper in Dubai: "Every day we find more and more cars," said one senior airport security official, who did not want to be named. "Christmas was the worst - we found more than two dozen on a single day." Apparently the poor man was seeing things.)

Only 11 cars have been abandoned at Dubai airport in over a year, according to the emirate’s chief of police in a stinging attack on the country’s media for misreporting the facts. Clarification on the number of cars left at Dubai International Airport came following repeated media reports that the figure had hit 3,000, as increasing numbers of expatriates fled the emirate as a result of the economic crisis.

Reports of thousands of cars being left at the airport as the global downturn hit Dubai have been circulating in the UAE media for weeks. However, it was an article in The Times of London last week, repeating the 3,000 figure, that prompted lieutenant general Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, chief of the Dubai police department, to speak out.

At an urgent press meeting on Friday, Tamim said the figure was inaccurate and accused journalists of spreading rumours, according to Gulf News who cited Arabic electronic newspaper Elaph.com. "Be assured that if we had at least 50 or 25 or 15 cars abandoned at the airport, I would have told you about it. There have only been 11 cars left at the airport since January 1, 2008, which is before the global economic crisis," Tamim said. Journalists had acted unprofessionally and without objectivity in reporting that Dubai’s economy was collapsing, he added." A reporter should always verify the facts of a report. Did the reporter come back to us or request a comment and we said 'No' to him? Credibility, objectivity and accountability are essential in journalism and this report lacked credibility."

False statements on the market collapsing……are nothing but incorrect rumours. If there is any disruption we will inform the media about it," said Tamim.

Dubai was still witnessing a smooth economy and the problems attributed to the emirate both in the local and international media were “completely false”, Tamim added.“We have to put a limit to this, we are aware of the reports published on this, but now it has gotten out of proportion."

Madame's "holiday": Part 1

Madame with her American friend

You may have noticed that I've often mentioned "Madame" in past posts. When people here talk about a Dubai Madame they mean a woman usually an expat, living the worry-free shopping/poolside/manicures life of luxury here (that's definitely not me then!) But no, this "Madame" is our car; a 505 bhp bi-turbo V8 Audi RS6, a muscle car supreme. I have her all week to go to and from work and Colin says he gets to drive her at the weekend "If he's a good boy." The car was named by Soirse as we ripped along the Hatta Road down to Oman on a visa run: "This is such a Madame car" she said, and the name has stuck. We're both so impressed with the Audi, she handles beautifully on the open road at speed, but is also very "well mannered" in suburban traffic (which is lucky when, like last night, it took me over an hour to travel the 5kms from BurJuman to the Trade Centre).

Anyway, it turns out that Madame was pinged in March doing 183kph in a 120kph zone (for heavens sake it was on a highway in the middle of the desert near Bab al Shams, we're talking "back of beyond" territory here...) As a result not only is there a fine but the car is being impounded for a week. We have to take her to the main police station in Dubai where she'll be locked up in their parking lot for a week.....eeuww.....it'll be full of Kia micro-cars and evil Nissan Sunnys with overdue parking fines.....poor, poor Madame! Our friend Allen's LandRover Discovery has also been impounded for a week so maybe the Disco and Madame can sit next to each other and glare at the other cars.

And before any smartypants(s) say anything, it wasn't me!