Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Stay Off the Roads!


People of Dubai, lock your doors and stay inside! Yes, I am biting the bullet and hiring a car today. To be fair my route to work won’t actually involve any main roads as my office is inside the area where we live (think enormous and v posh business park) but as the driving over here is so very hairy, I am still scared. And at some point, I really need to get onto the main roads too so that I can get around in the heat without relying on taxis.

Rules of driving in Dubai as I see them so far:

Drive as fast as you possibly can
Feel free to use your mobile phone at any point
Cut up other drivers frequently
Never use your indicators
Flash your lights at the car in front if is doing anything less than 100 miles an hour (slowcoach!)
If you miss your exit, don’t worry about cutting across 6 lanes of traffic to get to it
In fact, never worry about cutting across 6 lanes of traffic, at high speed, with no indication
Undertake whenever you feel like it
Never allow another driver into your lane, even if their feeder lane is running out and they are driving on wasteland
Don’t queue at roundabouts or traffic lights if there is a bit of dirt track just drive up and overtake people
Take no notice of other cars approaching roundabouts/rights of way, just fling yourself across at will

There are many many more rules which become apparent each day. Add in the fact that the road layout can change on a daily basis, and that the road signs are awful, and you are probably getting a good sense of how insane the situation is. Wish me luck!

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