Sunday, March 19, 2006

Another one.

“The UAE has some of the worst drivers in the world despite having an excellent road network and relatively new and well maintained vehicles,” Dr Prabhakar Rao of the International Association of Human Values, an arm of the UN.

Mina Seyahi. The scene - a huge amount of traffic because of the Boat Show, general chaos, cars & construction traffic coming from all directions. Dangerous conditions even if everyone does the right thing.

4x4, windows blacked out way beyond the legal limit, drives through a red light to do an illegal U-turn. Luckily got away with it, as did the innocents he might well have injured or worse.

And here we are in the middle of safe driving campaigns.

I must say that from what I've seen and heard of them they seem to be weak and ineffective to say the least. Still, it's better than nothing I suppose and at least we may educate the next generation of drivers to be less deadly than the present generation.

For the current generation, I'm sure it's a complete waste of time. We're flogging a dead horse. Why? The problem goes way beyond bad driving or ignoring the rules. It's mindless stupidity to a breathtaking degree, a blatant disregard for the lives of others or even their own. With that mindset, education is a waste of time. Taking them off the road to protect the rest of us is the only answer.

4 comments:

nzm said...

Check out this article about RTA in Dubai producing a traffic and road usage guide with the aim of "reducing congestion" on the roads.

The best bit comes at the bottom with the quote from Belhasa's Adam Kechil who says: "Most of the driving instructors here don't know how to teach. They themselves need to go on training course before they are allowed to teach."

Unbelieveable! The whole system is screwed.

Seabee said...

The roads around us, Marina/Knowledge Village/Media-Internet City, have suddenly become much less congested since the Al Sufoh Road and new interchanges have opened. But it obviously hasn't changed the lunatics' habits, that has nothing to do with the roads they're driving on. Freeway or goat track, they'll still drive like the lunatics they are.

nzm said...

Exactly.

It just gives them more room to continue driving like lunatics!

About a month ago coming home on SZR at night between Interchanges 3 and 4, I was in Lane 2 (from left) and looked into my mirror to see 2 Range Rovers low flying up behind me in the same lane. I stayed where I was, knowing that if I moved lanes that we would be history. These guys switched into the 3rd lane, cut between me and another car to come back into the 2nd lane before disappearing out of sight.

I've never before seen 2 cars travelling so fast in traffic and playing dodgems - they were easily at the 200kph mark - it was very scary.

It totally freaked out J as she didn't have the liberty of seeing in the mirror and had no idea of what was happening.

I was happy that it was me driving though - she freaks out at the slightest thing, and the first thing she would have done would have been to slam on the brakes. (and then yell at me because somehow it would have been my fault! lol)

Seabee said...

A daily story really, especially on SZR and Emirates Road. This ain't the place for nervous drivers!