Death of the innocents.

We had more terrible road crashes at the end of last week, with babies and children killed.

I always think it's a worse tragedy when children are involved. Helpless to protect themselves they have to rely totally on adults to care for them, to keep them safe. It's so often a misplaced trust.

Three children and an unborn baby died in two accidents on Thursday.

In Sharjah two little girls, Ayeesha Diya aged six and her sister Dina Ruqiya aged only three, were sleeping in the back of their car. According to a friend their father had stopped on the hard shoulder on the Al Dhaid-Sharjah highway because he was sleepy. That seemed the sensible thing to do, rather than drive on in a dangerously sleepy state.

At 11.30 pm another car slammed into them, killing the two little girls. Their pregnant mother was in critical condition, her baby was delivered in an emergency operation, condition not immediately known.

In Al Ain an eight year old, a pregnant woman and her unborn baby died. Police report that a tyre burst on their 4x4 vehicle when it was travelling at high speed, causing the vehicle to tumble for 140 metres. There were apparently fourteen pasengers in the vehicle, some of whom sustained serious injuries.

Sitting here in a helpless rage doesn't achieve anything and I'm sure there's nothing I - or you - can do anyway.

But this carnage has to be stopped.

It's a huge challenge because of the attitudes of drivers here and the different standards - not to mention the confusing roads and road signs that we have to try to deal with.

The RTA could obviously and easily get rid of the dangers the badly designed roads and signage cause, but I'm not sure they have the common sense or brainpower to do it.

The rest of the problems are much more complex. What will it take? An ongoing educational campaign, including school-age future drivers, a complete re-think about the way licences are issued, with none being issued automatically, every driver being schooled in one system of driving, a complete revamp of the driving school industry, a larger more effective traffic police division, rigid enforcement of the rules and laws.

I'm not holding my breath.

Sandstorms in Dubai.

LDU left a question on my last posting, asking whether we have sandstorms in Dubai.

We do, but thankfully not too often. In fact we get thick fog much more often than we get sandstorms. Imagine what that does to Dubai's traffic accident statistics!

So for LDU and anyone else who's interested, here are some photos taken by Mrs Seabee as we drove through a recent sandstorm.

The first two are on Sheikh Zayed Road by Dubai Marina:






The next one is Jebel Ali Village on a normal day:


And the same view when a sandstorm was brewing up:


Fortunately we got home before it became too bad.

Street cleaning, or the lack of...

A small item in the papers caught my eye. It's headed 'Campaign to clean roads launched' and says the RTA launched a drive to clean up, for Eid, roads, pedestrian crossings, bridges, tunnels and pavements. The campaign includes repairing, painting, washing & cleaning road facilities throughout Dubai.

Dubai Marina is obviously not a part of Dubai. Today it looks like this:







I've complained about this in the past, in fact a year ago. Emaar said it's the responsibility of construction companies to keep their area clean. Since then there's been a broom-man on each site trying to sweep, with a normal domestic broom, the sand back from the road.

But there are now many finished buildings with people living in them. There are no broom-men at those sites. And there are common areas such as roundabouts for which construction companies obviously can't be responsible.

But no-one is cleaning these finished areas, so the sand and rubbish just keeps building up.

I think we've established that the new areas such as Dubai Marina are, amazingly, outside the responsibility of the Municipality. I wonder whether the RTA has any authority or is it all down to the Master Developer?

More e-mails to Emaar are in order I think...

You couldn't make it up.

I've talked before about statements from 'officials' being confusing, incomprehensible, contradictory...

How about today's classic, from the CEO of Dubai's Real Estate Regulatory Authority:

"We will have a rental cap, but allow the landlord to adjust the rent based on the market value.

We want the market to be regulated, but also to leave it to supply and demand forces."

I swear that's what the report in Gulf News says. Does it mean that there will be a rent cap or not? Is the market to be regulated or open to market forces?

You can read the full story here.

A logical plan...but when?

RTA studies have shown that the sudden breakdown of a vehicle or a minor accident that actually needs only five minutes to clear the vehicle from the spot currently needs at least 40 minutes to remove the vehicle and resume normal traffic movement.

I think those of us who've been stuck in jams might think it takes a lot more than 40 minutes to resume normal traffic movement.

However, the RTA has come up with a logical, and long overdue, plan. Private companies with towing vehicles stationed at various sites across Dubai will be allowed to clear vehicles involved in minor accidents, clearing the roads much more quickly.

But.

The plan is only in the 'consideration' stages so we'll have to put up for a while yet with the unnecessary chaos that every accident causes.

The story doesn't say but I wonder if it will mean the stupidity of having to have a police report for even the most minor of accidents will disappear. What a nonsense that is, police time being wasted having to attend scenes of minor bumps, when no-one is injured, and writing a report just to satisfy the insurance companies.

By the way, the report gives figures that show the extent of our problems with driving standards. The number of registered vehicles in Dubai is 780,000. The number of accidents last year was 243,386. One in three vehicles is involved in an accident. An accident every two minutes. Amazing figures.

Gulf News report is here.

Another vehicle fire death

Last week I was asking why there were so many vehicle fires in crashes here.

Yet another one was reported on Emirates Road near Arabian Ranches during the Eid holiday. Two cars collided, one burst into flames and the driver died.

There are high speed crashes in other countries but they have nowhere near the number of fires that we have. So it surely has to be a safety thing doesn't it? Are the vehicles we get here less fire-safe? What are the regulations regarding fuel tank positioning and protection, for example. Are they less than in other countries?

They have jurisdiction?

Part of a short item in Gulf News caught my eye this morning, and it raises a question I can't answer.

Russian 'A.L.' was sentenced for molesting a stewardess on a flight to Dubai. Three months (suspended) and deportation.

That's fair enough. But...

He was also fined Dh2,000 for consuming alcohol. On the plane. Presumably mostly, if not all the time, in international airspace. Where it isn't illegal.

So how does our Public Prosecution have the authority to charge and sentence a foreign national for doing something outside these borders where it is not illegal?