I've been contemplating for a while now how to adequately describe the chaos and insanity that is driving on a daily basis here in Abu Dhabi so I decided to come up with a "guide", a list of unofficial rules that hopefully will stop you from getting killed!
1. When the light is about to change amber here it flashes green two or three times. This is to let you know that you should slow down and stop because the next flash is yellow and then red and there are red light cameras everywhere. Now, the common sense thing to do would be to slow down and stop.............WRONG! DO NOT SLOW DOWN ON A BLINKING GREEN! The reason for this advice is that no one around you will expect you to do it, and it's very likely that you will get rear ended. As my husband (who caused the three car accident behind us when he slowed for the blinking green light) can tell you!!!
2. If you come from Britain, then you are well versed in the round-about and will probably lose your mind driving here. If you come from Canada where we call them traffic circles and they're still new enough for everyone to complain about, then you don't need to read this rule because you're likely part of the problem!!!
SO...ROUNDABOUTS
- Of course you may exit from the inside lane of a 3 lane roundabout cutting across all other cars to get to your exit. Take care not to look to see if there are any cars in your way before you pull this stunt of course.
- If you're in the outside lane where you're supposed to exit, then by all means go past the exit to the one that is 2 exits away and cause near collisions at each one as people from the inside lane try to exit.
- According to a confidential source, who was told this specifically by the police, the only way to not be at fault when involved in an accident in a roundabout is to make sure that the roundabout is clear of all cars before entering.........hmmmmm. So on 15th street I could actually sit and block traffic for hours waiting to be the only car in the roundabout. Meanwhile, a taxi would have definitely rear-ended me while I waited.
- While someone in front of you is waiting for the right lane to be clear so they can enter the roundabout, please lean on your horn behind them. It will definitely make them want to get out of your way and they won't be annoyed at all.
3. Don't stop at stop signs because no one expects you to! I'm not sure why those big red signs are there with STOP written in English and Arabic but I don't think its anything to do with traffic flow. Same goes with yield as no one seems to understand what that actually means. And if you come to a 4 way stop.......just close your eyes and hope for the best because the whole concept of first to arrive at the intersection is not a custom that is practiced over here! Its all about your place in the social order and its a bit hard to tell that while driving.
4. Change lanes at random intervals, without shoulder checking, while in an intersection and into gaps of traffic that are too tiny for your car to fit. It seems to be a sport over here, the taxi drivers could win gold if lane cutting was an Olympic sport.
5. On the highways where the speed limit is already a respectable 140km/hr, you should go about 200 km/hr and fly up about half a meter behind the car in front of you that can't physically get out of your way because of the massive trucks that drive bumper to bumper in the inside lane and you should flash your lights and lean on the horn as a way to let them know that you'd REALLY like to get past.....inshallah.
6. Choose the most obnoxious colour you can think of and get your Porche Cayenne custom painted in it. Then, remove the boring old Porche logo and have it redone in swarovski crystals, or if you've really got a lot of "wasta" and/or a low license plate number....gold and diamonds. The rest of us think it looks absolutely ridiculous, but hey, to each their own right!?
7. Now this one is a bit worrying. Accept the fact that if you are hit by an Emirate man or woman, you'll be at fault. This is one of those very annoying aspects of life here in the UAE and one that makes me pray I never have an accident with a local. I'd like to say I hear stories where the local person takes the blame but I haven't heard one yet. I have however, heard of some truly horrible situations where people have been blamed for the other car's reckless driving despite there being witnesses saying otherwise. The logic I've heard to describe this is astounding. A friend of a friend was told that the red light that the local man had run(nearly side swiping this other person's car and kids) wasn't "meant for me to stop at" it was only there for "the others" because if these other people weren't in this person's country then they wouldn't be there for him to hit....therefore its the "others" fault if any accident occurs. See what I'm dealing with here!?! How do you even argue with logic like that? It's so utterly stupid that I can't even think of a good response!
8.Double and triple park where ever you possibly can and then abandon your car, blocking people in. People just LOVE that when its +40 out and their kids are cranky after dance class........LOVE IT.
9.And while we're on the topic of parking, pulling up to the taxi drop off in Khalidiya Mall and then just sitting in the car waiting for your womenfolk to show up is perfectly ok. Those poor taxi drivers who are now stuck behind you don't have anywhere to be of course, except you know.....making money to send home to their poor families. And of course by all means throw a complete tantrum when security asks you to circle around so that the taxis can drop off their fares and pick up the growing number of irritated expats waiting for a cab!
10.Whenever you feel like pulling into traffic is fine, please don't feel you have to wait for a break in traffic, the rest of us who know HOW to drive will hopefully be able to stop in time to not side swipe your car.
11. Don't even get me STARTED on seat belts. No one here wears a seatbelt. NO ONE. Kids do not use car seats here which would not be so horrific if they were belted in but they aren't. They sit on laps or are bouncing around in the back of the car with their heads out the window. Babies sit on the laps of their nannies or their mothers in the front seat and its not uncommon to see children lying on the dash or the back of the car. I can't even joke about this one because I find it so utterly disturbing. Car seats save lives, seat belts save lives and you're a complete idiot if you don't take advantage of that. The #1 cause of death for children under 14 in Abu Dhabi is traffic fatalities. It actually blows my mind a little because this is a VERY intelligent and highly educated society. Many take their degrees abroad and so must know that the rest of the world restrains their children in moving vehicles, couple that with the fatality statistics and one would think that car seats would have caught on here. It IS law here that a child be restrained but its not a law that is enforced.
So to sum it all up, at any given time when driving expect those around you to crash into you from all sides. Don't expect anyone to actually STOP at a red light or a stop sign and always be vigilant (especially in a roundabout where its a bit like playing bumper cars).
P.S. Wear your freaking seatbelt.
**and just for the record the above guide is not seriously a guide on how to drive in Abu Dhabi and in no way should it be taken as such. Thought I'd better throw that out there just in case someone googles this topic and their English isn't quite developed enough yet to recognize sarcasm when they see it!**
