Even though I was away, I didn’t forget about Dubai or its myriad of traffic woes. I kept tabs on the local press, searching out articles on traffic and the metro. I must say I have been very impressed with the recent reporting in The National concerning road safety. After the WHO report on traffic fatalities came out they stepped up the to plate and have been doing a good job of highlighting the woeful inadequacies of the built environment in the UAE as well as the horrendous local driving practices.
My favourite article was headlined, Young motorists 'fear ridicule' , on August 13th. I was excited to see the story as I had read a similar storey previously, but I was never able to figure out where I saw it. The basic jist is, young Emirates drive like complete nimrods because they are afraid of what their friends will say if they drive safely. It’s apparently even uncool to wear a seatbelt. I’d totally rather die than be uncool!
I suppose a certain percentage of the youth in any country can be pointed to as being complete morons. In LA one would perhaps join a gang, deal some drugs, and perhaps shoot at someone from a moving car. Here, drugs and gangs don’t seem to be so cool, so hey, instead let’s drive at high speed while swerving between lanes without signalling!
I think the driver behaviour here is a symptom of a larger problem with this society. The people who engage in these behaviours obviously lack some sort of key personality trait that links behaviour with consequence. They are basically kings of the castle, running around with big boys toys and little to no impetus to act in a way that benefits anyone but themselves. I’m not saying that every Emirate acts in such a way, but clearly there are enough doing so that one runs into them every single day – even on a short commute.
There is a definite sense of entitlement wizzing through the air here. For example, just last night I was hunkered down at the fish shack near Um Suqeim park enjoying some tasty fried fish and prawns. We were merrily munching away, sitting at our plastic table in a dirt lot when a car (piloted by locals) pulled up and started honking. It continued to honk until the waiter finally went over and spoke with them. Basically, they couldn’t be bothered to actually get out of their car to order their food! It happened more than once while we were eating, which was quite annoying. I finally yelled at another car to try walking into the restaurant themselves. They ended up tearing off in a huff – sans fish. It’s not like it was terribly hot outside, or there was no parking. They apparently just thought it was beneath them to actually lift a finger for their meal.
In terms of crazy road behaviour, it’s hard to top an email I recently received from a colleague. He sent around some photos that he took while driving home on Emirates Rd. Incredibly (or not so incredibly for Dubai), what he described was a series of about 20 cars driving down the highway at 120 kph with several people hanging out the windows and one guy literally sitting on the roof. As if that wasn’t enough, someone jumped from the roof of one car to another and then climbed in the window (unfortunately that wasn’t captured on film).
My favourite article was headlined, Young motorists 'fear ridicule' , on August 13th. I was excited to see the story as I had read a similar storey previously, but I was never able to figure out where I saw it. The basic jist is, young Emirates drive like complete nimrods because they are afraid of what their friends will say if they drive safely. It’s apparently even uncool to wear a seatbelt. I’d totally rather die than be uncool!
I suppose a certain percentage of the youth in any country can be pointed to as being complete morons. In LA one would perhaps join a gang, deal some drugs, and perhaps shoot at someone from a moving car. Here, drugs and gangs don’t seem to be so cool, so hey, instead let’s drive at high speed while swerving between lanes without signalling!
I think the driver behaviour here is a symptom of a larger problem with this society. The people who engage in these behaviours obviously lack some sort of key personality trait that links behaviour with consequence. They are basically kings of the castle, running around with big boys toys and little to no impetus to act in a way that benefits anyone but themselves. I’m not saying that every Emirate acts in such a way, but clearly there are enough doing so that one runs into them every single day – even on a short commute.
There is a definite sense of entitlement wizzing through the air here. For example, just last night I was hunkered down at the fish shack near Um Suqeim park enjoying some tasty fried fish and prawns. We were merrily munching away, sitting at our plastic table in a dirt lot when a car (piloted by locals) pulled up and started honking. It continued to honk until the waiter finally went over and spoke with them. Basically, they couldn’t be bothered to actually get out of their car to order their food! It happened more than once while we were eating, which was quite annoying. I finally yelled at another car to try walking into the restaurant themselves. They ended up tearing off in a huff – sans fish. It’s not like it was terribly hot outside, or there was no parking. They apparently just thought it was beneath them to actually lift a finger for their meal.
In terms of crazy road behaviour, it’s hard to top an email I recently received from a colleague. He sent around some photos that he took while driving home on Emirates Rd. Incredibly (or not so incredibly for Dubai), what he described was a series of about 20 cars driving down the highway at 120 kph with several people hanging out the windows and one guy literally sitting on the roof. As if that wasn’t enough, someone jumped from the roof of one car to another and then climbed in the window (unfortunately that wasn’t captured on film).
This isn’t an isolated incident either. Another friend told me last National Day he was driving to Abu Dhabi and saw a guy sitting on the roof of a car doing 120 kph as well. Another guy he saw had his seat fully reclined and was steering the car with his feet.
OK, so I have heard of this in the US as well, but more than likely this similar behaviour would also include a rural farm road and take place at well after midnight. This was a crowded Emirates Rd at 6pm on a weekday! WTF? Are they all training to be stuntmen? Have they watched one too many re-runs of CHiPs? It’s no wonder everyone drives like maniacs, they have little to no sense of consequence for personal danger – where were the cops? Are the lives of these young Emirates otherwise extremely boring? Do they need this in order to feel ‘alive’? I am genuinely curious.
Of course these were just outlandish examples of bravado by the young (and brain dead). In fact, the people actually driving were probably doing so a bit safer than normal since their friends were hanging out on top of the car. The real problem is the everyday driving habits of these same guys. If they don’t think sitting on top of a car is risky, then changing lanes at high speed without signalling is a bit of a yawn. But it’s all of those little decisions that they make that cause all of the big accidents.
Disturbingly, the actions of certain reckless drivers are apparently more contagious than swine flu. According to a recent article – again in The National – “Bad driving spreads like a “virus” among motorists who copy others’ negative behaviour and flout the law”. I have totally noticed this trend in Dubai, and I am glad someone has actually gone and quantified it (the study was done by a researcher from UAE University in Al Ain). I see westerners, who have completely been undone by the defacto ‘rules of the road’ here in Dubai. They drive more aggressively and more dangerously than they would at home, simply because everyone else is doing it and there is an utter lack of enforcement.
I have had colleagues tell me they didn’t realize how bad of drivers they had become until they went back to their home countries and hit the roads. They soon realized they were driving like complete lunatics – excessively speeding, tailgating, making unsafe lane changes – practices they rarely engaged in prior to living in Dubai.
What is going on here? What happened to this country? What is it doing to the people who live here? It’s like one of those horror movies where everyone gets turned into Zombies or infected with rage.
According to another article in The National, some people may actually need therapy to curb their whacked out driving. The article also seems to suggest that poor driving by local youth is the result of the breakdown of traditional family life paired with universal teenage unruliness. One teen was quoted saying, “During driving and that rush of adrenaline – the car becomes like ... I’m a superman, and I can do whatever I want to do.” Again, this could probably be a kid from any country, but the major difference here is, no one is stopping him.
Something really needs to happen; a societal change needs to occur. Hopefully the WHO report was the wake-up call that this country needed. Kudos to The National for not letting the report be a blip on the radar. Let’s hope they keep up the heat on the government, and on the residents of this country (local and expat), to make the roads a safer place.
Of course the problems on the road aren’t all caused by poor driving. The built environment itself encourages speeding, and there seems to be little impetus for yielding to more vulnerable road users (pedestrians and cyclists). There is a slight glimmer of hope though, and once again it seems that Abu Dhabi is gaining the upper hand in converting their city to a more liveable place. According to yet another article in The National (they are on a roll), the city has created a new program to upgrade pedestrian crossings. Though small, it is a great first step in rearranging priorities on the road. In Dubai’s defence I have seen several new raised crosswalks dotted around Bur Dubai and Karama, but there doesn’t seem to be even the glimmer of any systematic change in design principles (such as Abu Dhabi’s plan 2030).
Both cities have a long way to go before becoming attractive places for pedestrians (according to the article, Abu Dhabi saw 26 pedestrian deaths in just the first 71 days of the year). Plus, neither of these programs is much more than a bandaid for the real problem, which is roadways which are designed purely to move as many vehicles as possible without regard for pedestrian or cyclist safety. Study after study has shown that roadway design greatly influences driver behaviour, and Dubai’s roadway designs say please speed!
I think it’s time for Dubai to reassess its relationship with the automobile. Hopefully the opening of the Metro will be seen as the moment when a shift started to occur; a shift away from designing for cars, and towards designing for people.
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