Fair cops

Dubai Police are among the best in the world.

According to... Dubai Police!

A huge round of applause to Lt General Tamim for winning such an outstanding self-accolade.

Meanwhile is anyone else slightly disturbed that "causing death to others" has only just been made a road rule?

Laissez-faire driving in the city is a thing of the past — something that has been made clear by the UAE government's new road rules which came into effect on March 1. New rules include "Causing death of others" to "Driving a noisy vehicle" and "Driving without spectacles or contact lenses."

Royal joyride

An amusing story, sent in by an associate. US popstar Justin Timberlake comes to the UAE and plays a major UAE venue. Three RAF pilots on the Tornado F3 deployment in the Gulf go along to the show. "Drink is taken as it is with Irish navvies and fighter pilots," the source notes.

Somehow, the three pilots find themselves unsure of how to return home - one thing leads to another and they end up breaking into a shiny sheikhmobile.

"On the road, the cops. Shit. Arrested. Worse shit: turns out the sheikhmobile belongs to the brother of El Presidente himself."

The men have now apologised but will appear in court next week on car theft and drinking charges.

No, I've never met a nice...

On such a day as this it seems appropriate to ask - why are South Africans, and to a lesser degree Scots, the only peoples so insistent on proclaiming their nationality on the back of their cars?

Sick joke of salik

Amen:

"Today is the 100th day of the introduction of the Salik toll system in Dubai. Since its launch on July 1, it is believed that the road toll system, the first of its kind in the UAE and in the region, has earned revenues of more than Dh200 million.

"However, it has done little to ease traffic jams on the targeted road and on roads leading to the controlled zone. On the contrary, the situation has become worse."

As predicted here and by a thousand other right thinking individuals.

As Gulf News points out, the government could have collected revenues much more easily by a simple tax, which would have cost motorists less as well.

But Dubai is currently being run by a combination of liars and cretins.

Five Dubai delights

As the time of year comes to pack the BOAC bag and set off on another trip back to colder climes, the thought of what will be most sorely missed from the sandlands comes to mind.

Among Dubai's many attractions, five things stand out:

1. Permanent, brilliant sunshine

2. Shops open until at least 10pm every night

3. Being able to drive at 140kmph with relative impunity

4. Cheap, ubiquitous, excellent Lebanese food

5. Alphonso mangoes

Perhaps there are others. But these five delights are those that will cause the greatest pangs while sitting under a grey, drizzling sky munching a wormy apple, with the sandwich shop closed by 5.30pm and twelve points on ones licence for doing 31mph in a 30mph zone.

Imbesalik

Hint to the wise brethren of the RTA: shifting gridlock from one location to another is not actually solving gridlock.

Salik salik salik

Salik.

Everyone from the Head of Dubai police down to the lowliest taxi driver knows that the Dubai road toll is a complete crock of shit.

So why is Sheikh Mohammed allowing it to go ahead?

Farewell to the Sunnymen

No longer will motorists be forced to sit behind white Nissan Sunnies doing 40kmph in the fast lane of Sheikh Zayed road, beads swinging from their rear view mirrors. A minimum speed limit of 60kmph is being imposed:

RTA officials said yesterday that the decision was taken to increase road safety after a study revealed that disparity between the speed of vehicles on certain roads is one of the main factors that causes accidents. The maximum speed limit on the emirate’s highways is 120kph.

Less flashing, more dashing.

Tropical Storm Ahmed

When the ceiling of Spinneys Umm Seqeim suddenly began rattling violently, customers throughout the aisles stopped dead in their shopping tracks. Was Iran invading? Was the apocalypse nigh?

Happily or sadly it turned out to be just rain, but huge, heavy tropical rain hammering onto the roof in great fat drops. It sounded more like hail.

Sheikh Zayed Road was a dark mirror of golden headlight streaks shining through the rain mist thrown up behind vehicles, even more filthy than the rain itself. Rain in the sandlands requires gallons of windscreen wiper water to wash it off continually, as the heat of the day instantly dries it to a dusty film after each sweep. As it is pushed to the side of the window, it appears almost milky with dirt.

But the lovely thing about rain is a slight reduction in tailgating: drivers extend their "safe stopping distance" from two inches to about two foot.

Storms in other parts of the world get names, so given Dubai has so few it is time to start naming them alphabetically, making this one Tropical Storm Ahmed. The next one, in tribute to Dubai's multicultural society, will be Cyclone Babu.

Recipe for Congestion Cake

1. Take one perma-gridlocked city crammed with overweight, under-excercised residents who divide their time between traffic jams, the office, and the brunch buffet.

2. Add two scoops of 24/7 road tolls with no incentive for drivers to avoid the rush hour, and several out-of-service "intelligent" traffic information signals.

3. Fold in a lack of any proper public transport system and a metro that is another two years away.

4. Sprinkle on the illegality of shared car lifts and return taxi rides between emirates.

5. Add a liberal dash of booming population figures, spiralling rents, and soaring Sharjah-Dubai commuter numbers.

6. Allow to brew for several years of despair, misery and anger.

7. Serve, garnished with the news that even cycling is illegal throughout most of the emirate, including leafy suburban Jumeirah.

Dubai-delicious!

Fast lane

Race win for UAE national

Wed 17 Jan, 2007 1:23 AM GMT

DENVER, 17 July (AP) - UAE national Jamal Al Sweihan has become the first Arab to win the World Speed-SMS Championship in Denver, Colorado.

Al Sweihan beat contestants from thirty other countries in to write and send an SMS message in just 4.6 seconds while driving at 220kmph.

He narrowly missed out on a gold in the slalom event after receiving a two-second penalty for abbreviating "you're" to "ur".

The Abu Dhabi resident puts his success down to regular training sessions.

"I train for two hours each day, up and down Sheikh Zayed highway, I send maybe three hundred messages during this time," Al Sweihan said.

"But in the UAE it is more difficult because you must have one hand free to flash the headlights at the car in front, but in the race you can have both hands on the phone."

Al Sweihan's next challenge will be next month's International MMS Rally in Kuala Lumpur.

© Associated Press 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Camel catastrophe

Many sandlanders drive in a sense of fear along desert highways such as the Hatta road, in case a stray camel runs from behind a dune into their car and dies. According to expat urban legend, a camel costs twice the blood money of a human (which is Dh200,000), and it is always the motorist's fault.

Not quite true, going by this recent court case:

"A UAE national was fined dhs400 for running over a camel in an accident in Ras Al-Khaima, a report said. RAK traffic court fined the 28-year-old man, identified only as MM, for killing the camel and allowed the owner to file a civil case for compensation, Al Bayan reported. The man was driving his car recklessly in October when he hit the camel. The camel’s 61-year-old owner was fined dhs200 for failing to look after the animal."

While it's possible that this was a prime racing camel worth several million, chances are the final tab will come in at significantly less than 400k. Which frankly should be split between the motorist and the owner, if he was also judged negligent, but the vagaries of UAE law are generally beyond mortal understanding.

Manic Sunday

Five o'clock already
And the mosques are all beginning to wail
I was kissing Valentino
And they caught me and they threw me in jail

But I can't be late
Because I gotta drive Al Shittihad Road
These are the days
When you wish it all would go and explode

It's just another manic Sunday
Wish it were Friday
'Cause that's my dead day
My don't-get-out-of-bed day
It's just another manic Sunday

Have to cross the bridge again
Gotta be at work by eight
And if I had a sheikhmobile
I'd still be three hours late

'Cause the Sunny in front
Can't go faster than two miles an hour
And the roads are all blocked
Where they're building yet another bloody tower

It's just another manic Sunday
Wish it were Friday
'Cause that's my brunch day
My all-I-do-is-lunch day
It's just another manic Sunday

All of the time
Why do they seem to want to drive us out
Of this town?
Nobody cares
That the rents are up
And the pay is down

They tell us when we start to moan:
"If you don't like it, you can go home"
Time it goes so slow
When you're stuck in traffic...

It's just another manic Sunday

Metromania

It's wonderful that they're finally building the metro, and it's lovely that they're handing out free water and chocolate dates to publicise it, but why?

Why is there such an urgent need for people to be "aware" of the Metro at least three years before its first phase is completed?

"Though everybody knows that the construction of the metro has started, to most people it is something abstract. They have to learn that the Dubai Metro is a vital service being built for their benefit."

Why?

It's not as though people can dump their cars and hop in the as-yet-non-existent metro to work. It's not like anyone desperately needs to know, in October 2006, every last detail of a transport system arriving in 2009. It's not as if a single sandlander is going to be unaware of a huge bloody great train running all over Dubai once it finally does arrive.

And nor is it likely that Dubaians will suddenly feel loads better about sitting in hellish perma-gridlock day-in-day-out because of the remote prospect that commuting may become slightly less painful three years down the train-track.

Sandy hand shandy

The problem with perverts in the sandlands is that they just won't stop at a leer and a wink. They are unable to wait until they get back to their private quarters before indulging in a vigourous pocket-rummage:

In Jumeirah Natalie from Belgium was flashed at whilst walking to get a taxi.

"He seemed normal at first but then I realised he was thrusting in his trousers," she said.

No wonder that the boys-in-green are bringing in a "three strikes and you're out" policy aimed at the boys-in-blue. We will fight them on the beaches, promises Brigadier Khamis Al Mazeina, but what about fighting them in the streets as well?

"Some women also reported that vehicles with tinted windows crawl past them on the street and the male drivers offer lifts or try to make inappropriate conversation."

"Tinted windows"... but expat bachelors aren't allowed blacked-out windows, surely? Oh...

The first circle of Hell

We knew it had to happen, but the prospect of two and a half-years of construction at Defence Roundabout is absolutely terrifying:

"Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director, Roads and Transport Authority, said the construction on the First Interchange on Shaikh Zayed would start on 4 October this year. It will be completed in 30 months at a cost of Dh617 million."

Given the sheer, congested, confused hell of the under-construction Media City interchange over the past year, the pain when the already perma-gridlocked Defence Roundabout is fiddled with will be unbearable.

Ticketed off

Everyone loves a surprise, so isn't it kind of the Roads and Transport Authority, particularly as people are feeling a bit sad now Dubai Summer Surprises is over, to give some residents a big surprise?

"Bur Dubai residents woke up to a very nasty surprise yesterday morning as cars parked outside apartment buildings were slapped with parking tickets after dozens of new parking meters were activated without warning.

"One frustrated resident, who lives in a building behind Burjuman said the parking meter she parked next to was still surrounded by rubble and building materials and as residents were not informed on the date of meter’s operation, she assumed it was not yet operational. "So unless the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) sent residents telepathic messages, I can’t see how we were supposed to know when to start paying,” said Amanda Peterson.""

If Dubai, the City That Cares, becomes any more caring, it will turn into just one big humanitarian zone!

Violations of common sense

Perhaps sandlands police could spend a bit less time fretting over "corrupting" pop videos and getting websites blocked and a bit more time revamping their monumentally deficient traffic laws. After all, no one has yet died from YouTube, but thousands die every year from murderous motoring morons. So perhaps it's about time tailgating was relegated from legal national sport to criminal offence:

"A total of 211 people thought that the consequences of tailgating were ‘that you can frustrate other drivers and make them angry’. While that is probably perfectly true, the real answer to the question is ‘tailgating cannot result in a traffic violation’. That’s right. As 27 people knew, tailgating is not illegal in the UAE.

"And yet 250 knew that the main cause of rear-end shunts was driving too close to the vehicle in front - a case of how the law needs to catch up with common sense?"

Common sense: it's not really part of the culture here, is it? Not when there are djinns and various other mystical sand fairies to blame. And it would be very sad to see the sandlands miss out on yet another Guiness World Record, especially when 2006 looking so promising for the biggest road death toll yet.

So turn off those evil Western style pop music channels, and hit that accelerator. Anyone driving more than two millimetres from the White Nissan Sunny in front is a big camel's blouse.

Cabbies from Planet Zen

Meditation and deep-breathing lessons for taxi drivers, all well and good. It's nice to see that National Taxi is concerned about its cabbies' well-being:

The International Association for Human Values (IAHV), a Dubai-based voluntary organisation, has been called in to train National Taxi drivers in anti-stress techniques. “Taxi drivers spend most of their time behind the wheel and are the most stressed out,” said Prabhakar Rao of IAHV. “Our research shows that major causes for accidents are speed, distraction and tailgating, all of which originate from stress.”

But wouldn't tackling the root of the stress perhaps be more effective? When drivers are working 18-hour-days and scraping by on around Dh1,300 a month in a gridlocked city where taxis are metered by distance not time, zen-like tranquility is hardly going to result from a bit of yoga and crystal jangling.

Driving song

We barrel down Sheikh Zayed on a sunny afternoon
The speed alarm is beeping out a very merry tune
We rubberneck to see a wreck upon the other side
We phone a friend and send a text, it's such a joyful ride

Driving Dubai, yeah, Driving Dubai
We race we speed we crash we burn we die

The traffic lights have just turned red and so we dash across
We nearly cause an accident but we don't give a toss
We shunt a taxi up the rear to get it out the way
We're off before they call the cops so someone else can pay

Driving Dubai, yeah, Driving Dubai
We roar we fly we zoom we hit we die

We roar up the hard shoulder and we weave it all about
But they can never see us as the windows are blacked out
Across the central barrier and up onto the kerb
We tailgate everyone in sight, it really is superb

Driving Dubai, yeah, Driving Dubai
We skid we swerve we screech we smash we die

Now given music and voice (download here) by Dubtown Lady.