I spend a lot of time driving in Dubai, and it can be a wild ride.
To anyone venturing out for the first time, I’d recommend forgetting everything you learned about driving in your home country because, on the city’s eight-lane highways, you’ll see drivers playing a real-life game of Frogger – hopping from lane to lane without missing a beat.
The roads are a chaotic mix of fast-paced highways, winding backstreets and sudden roundabouts that can leave even the most experienced drivers feeling dizzy.
One of the first things you’ll notice when driving in Dubai is the sheer number of luxury cars on the road. Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Rolls Royces are a common sight, and it’s not unusual to see a family of five crammed into a sports car that looks like it was designed for two.
The other day, I came off a roundabout in the wrong orbit – in the fast lane, which I usually avoid due to the aggressive, extreme tailgaters. This is a common problem on Dubai’s busy roads and refers to drivers who closely follow your vehicle, flashing their headlights.
Unable to move over, it wasn’t long until I saw a tailgater in my rearview mirror, approaching my car faster than a gazelle on caffeine. He began flashing his lights. I still couldn’t safely move over due to traffic, and so my car became like a magnet for his.
It was as if he had a personal vendetta against my vehicle and was determined to kiss my bumper all the way to my destination. I wondered if he was trying to communicate with me through some kind of secret brake light flashing code.
Over many years, I’ve learned that it’s not worth letting drivers like this ruin your day – but another incident a couple of weeks before did leave me completely gobsmacked.
It even happened in the slow lane, where I was travelling along cautiously as it was raining cats and dogs, it was dark, and cars were aquaplaning in the other lanes.
A large, long vehicle rushed up behind me and began blinking its lights. He was like a persistent mosquito, and as I attempted to keep my cool, he stayed behind me, determined to keep up the annoyance.
He weaved around me on the left and I got a clear look at what it was.
It was a school bus! A yellow beast, driven not by the usual patient soul, blessed with a calm demeanour belying the chaos coming from his cargo of chattering children, but by a first-class idiot. The bus was devoid of kids, but still … what a nutter.
Of course, my kids think it was hilarious that a school bus, something they consider to be the equivalent of a giant yellow snail inching its way down the road, tailgated me!