Tag Archives: Dubai roads

Deliveroo bike tailgated by a persistent and overly attached Land Cruiser

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Well, I thought I’d seen it all when I was tailgated by a school bus in the rain a couple of weeks ago.

I hadn’t – tonight’s tailgating episode left my eyes as wide as saucers!

Trundling along, I heard honking to my left. 

In Dubai, honking horns is like a game of musical chairs, except instead of chairs, you’re fighting for road space. Instead of music, you’re treated to the soothing sounds of car horns blaring at once.

Pipping the hooter is a national pastime. It can be both cathartic and frustrating. On the one hand, you feel satisfied when you let out a good, long honk after someone cuts you off or merges into your lane without warning. On the other hand, the constant noise can be overwhelming, like being stuck in the middle of a never-ending parade of angry geese.

And don’t even get me started on the different types of honks. There’s the short, sharp honk that says, “Get out of my way”; the long, drawn-out honk that says, “I’m so angry I can’t even form words”; and the friendly honk that says, “Hey there, fellow driver, let’s share a moment of camaraderie in this sea of chaos.”

But the best honks are entirely unintentional. For example, when someone accidentally leans on their horn while adjusting their sunglasses or scratching their nose. It’s like a sudden burst of noise that snaps you out of your driving trance and reminds you that you’re not alone in this crazy world.

But I digress. I looked left to see what the commotion was all about. There was a Deliveroo driver on a motorbike travelling beside my car. Now, I happen to think these riders are like real-life superheroes, but rather than saving the world, they deliver your favourite food right to your doorstep. They magically transform your hunger into happiness within minutes.

These food delivery ninjas must be quick on their feet, able to dodge traffic like a matador dodging a bull. And just like a matador, they must be brave, willing to face the dangers of the open road, armed only with a smartphone and a can-do attitude.

And let’s not forget the challenge of finding the right house, especially when the house numbers are in a cryptic code that only the Illuminati can decipher.

To my horror, the poor Deliveroo motorcyclist who had drifted into the faster lane was being tailgated by a Land Cruiser with blacked-out windows. This wasn’t just any old tailgating. Oh no, this was tailgating Dubai-style. It was like the driver, a shadowy figure sitting superiorly higher than the bike rider, was auditioning for a role in the next Fast and Furious movie. The poor, vulnerable Deliveroo rider could probably see his own alarmed reflection in the Landcruiser’s flashing headlights. 

All ended safely, thank goodness, though the motorcyclist did have to swerve out of the way as fast as he could. I do hope he got a big tip at his delivery address.

The next time you see a Deliveroo driver speeding down the road, give them a wave and a cheer because they are the true food delivery champions!

Driving in Dubai: Mario Kart, with real cars and no shells to throw at your opponents

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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!

Top 5 summer car maintenance tips from Careem

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Careem, the Dubai-based private ride-hailing app, has always taken road safety very seriously, not just for their own Captains and customers but also for the other motorists throughout the UAE.

As part of its ongoing campaign to make the UAE’s roads a safer place, Careem’s care centre manager Hamid Moaref, who overlooks the maintenance of 300 of Careem’s fleet per month, reveals his top five tips to keep your car running safely in the intense summer heat.

Screen Shot 2017-08-04 at 22.05.12

Don’t tire out your tyres
Tyre failure can occur when it is least expected. Tyres are the only part of the car in contact with the road, hence it is important to get them checked and replace them if necessary. All Careem vehicles are required to undergo a check-up every quarter and Careem recommends the same for your own vehicle. A good tip is to fill your tyres with nitrogen and not regular air. Nitrogen does not expand as the temperature rises inside your tyres, thus making them last longer.

Keep the battery alive and kicking
As cars will be working harder during the hot summer months, so will the car battery. Within the GCC region, car batteries typically work for up to two years only, mainly due to extensive use of the vehicle’s air conditioning and the greater degree of evaporation of the many fluids used throughout the mechanics of the vehicle. Careem advises all motorists to check their car battery at periodic intervals.

Screen Shot 2017-08-04 at 22.07.58Stay cool
As your vehicle’s air conditioning system will be heavily used throughout the summer months, it is essential to make sure it is working at the optimum level. All the A/C filters need to be checked and replaced if dirty. Cleaning the filters makes a huge difference to the air circulating inside the vehicle, and reduces the chances of getting an air-borne infection. As an added extra, the Careem Care Centre recommends getting an A/C disinfectant job done as well.

Hydration
Your car’s fluid levels, from engine oil to coolant, should be checked regularly to prevent the engine from overheating and reduce the chances of a vehicle breakdown. Careem drivers are required to check coolant and oil levels at least once a month.

Shade is everything
The intense summer heat can play havoc with the internal compartments of a vehicle. Try to always park in a covered garage or in the shade, or purchase a sun shade. Reducing the impact of the sun’s rays not only lowers the chance of the engine overheating, but also prevents the interiors from fading and stops cracks developing on the dashboard.

Power games in the left lane

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My rearview mirror flashed in blinding strobes as the Land Cruiser behind me almost rammed me at 80 kmph. I was being tailgated and the impatient driver’s trigger-happy finger on his headlights wasn’t about to relax.

But where to move to? There was traffic to my right, and anyway, his huge, ugly car meant I could hardly see if the right lane was clear. Changing lanes didn’t feel safe. I stayed put and gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles showed white. My heart rate sped up.

dubai-spaghetti-junction

Another problem with Dubai roads

I was already doing 20-over the speed limit and there was a bend coming up. For a moment, it looked like he might overtake on the hard-shoulder; he zigzagged to the left, then to the right, and finally zipped round me on the inside.

Then he came in front of me, and nearly stopped.

My foot slammed onto the brake, and my heart leapt into my mouth. I’m pretty sure it skipped a few beats. My throat tightened.

Behind me, the next car, thankfully, slowed right down and put his hazard lights on, two beacons of orange flashing urgently.

But what was the urgency? This, dear reader, exemplifies everything that’s wrong with Dubai roads: the road hogs with their blacked-out windows who have zero respect for other people’s lives, who tailgate aggressively, and who, like my one on my way home from work yesterday, was so filled with adrenalin he thought he’d teach me a lesson for not moving over and swerve in front of me and drive like a slug.

If he wasn’t in his car, behind glass and steel, and was instead walking behind me in the mall, would he walk right up to me until he was so close I could feel his hot breath on my neck, and then push me out the way? No he wouldn’t. So why does he think it’s okay to do this in his car?

I didn’t appreciate being bullied like that on my way home from work, MORON.

Silent Sunday: Fun and games at the roundabout

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They’ve been digging up this traffic circle outside school for some time now. I drove by the other day and saw this sign. I can hardly wait to see what the ‘new and exciting roundabout’ will look like! But then, as my friend L pointed out, it will be exciting. See on the sign, we’re all going to be driving around the roundabout in the other direction. Now that’s sure to make the school run more interesting.

roundabout sign at Arabian Ranches

 

Black Pajeros come in threes

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When you’ve been in Dubai for a while, there comes a time when you realise your ageing car doesn’t cut it anymore. This moment came for us (well, DH at least) when our 4by4 started leaking brake fluid on Sheikh Zayed Road.

This came after our housemaid slammed her foot onto the accelerator rather than the brake, and crashed it into a tree – but more about that later.

I should add, as an aside, that if you do break down here, someone nearly always helps. It’s the Arabic culture to do so, perhaps because it’s a country where, as soon as you leave the major urban centres, you enter a middle-of-nowhere landscape where in summer it seems incredible that anything could survive. Staring through the car window at endless sand, littered with dunes, scrubby shrubs and giant electricity pylons whose wires stretch for as far as the eye can see in each direction, you might wonder how humans have thrived in the desert for the last 2,000 years or so.

Another day, another school runNow, our ailing car probably wouldn’t be considered especially old in most other countries, but in the UAE we drive hundreds of kilometres a week (and that’s just carting the kids to school and their various activities). Add to that the sand, heat and – in some cases – aggressive driving, and it’s easy to see why wear and tear is so rapid here.

Motorists in the Emirates keep a car for, on average, about 5.2 years, less than half the 11.5-year average for vehicles in the US, but much longer than drivers in Saudi Arabia who keep their cars for 3.8 years before selling them, according to The National.

Anyway, seduced by the easy financing options on offer in the UAE, we’re now the proud owners of a brand-new Pajero – as black as a moonless night (the only colour left) with dark tinted windows to screen out the sunlight. It was an exciting moment when it rolled up outside, all shiny and clean with plastic covers on the seats and that new-car smell.

DH had to leave on a trip straight away, so I was the first to take it for a spin – well, to transport the kids to baseball anyway. And I realised there’s nothing quite like gingerly driving a new car to make you feel like you’re negotiating Dubai traffic for the first time. White Van Man, Mr No Rules, The Flasher, Mr Road Hog and The Slow Poke were all out to get me (press here for more detailed descriptions of the characters on Dubai’s roads), and it was with some relief that I arrived at our destination without incident.

Only to find that the car we were so thrilled with is, quite literally, everywhere.

Black Pajeros are like buses

When is a stop sign not a stop sign?

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Driving through our compound the other afternoon, I found myself behind a school bus. The big, yellow bus pulled to the side of the road; and the driver extended the stop arms, ready to eject the kiddos onto the pavement. Now, as a car driver, what does that mean to you?

A) Stop.  B) Slow down, but get past.  C) Speed up.

I chose A. I drove in the US for five years, where motorists stop 20-25 feet behind or facing a school bus with flashing lights or stop arms, EVEN when it has halted on the opposite side of the road. I was so careful about this in the States, I would have stopped dead in my tracks in instances where the school bus driver had just parked for 10 minutes to eat his sarnies.

A stop sign mean stop, right? Until it doesn’t.

A stop sign means stop, right? Until it doesn’t.

The driver behind me opted for C, zipping round both my vehicle and the school bus. (Those who navigate Middle East cities on a regular basis, and already know all the different levels of stupidity, won’t be surprised by this at all.)

There’s another permanent stop sign – just outside our compound – where the correct answer isn’t so clear, though. Imagine this scene if you will: you come off the highway and at the bottom of the exit, where you can turn left into a tunnel (from which cars are also emerging) to make a U-turn or go straight on, lies the largely ignored stop.

Here, your options are: A) Come to a complete stop and risk being rear-ended.  B) Stop, and develop dangerously high blood pressure as the car behind rudely darts round you.  C) Slow down and go through it carefully.  D) Blow right through it at speed, as though you’re still sailing along the highway you’ve just left.

And believe me, this particular junction has been a huge issue for our compound. Several friends have (rightly, in my opinion) followed cars home that have sped through it, to confront the drivers.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a police car behind me, and thought I’d better pick A. It’s clearly an octagonal red sign, with the words STOP in big white letters, and cars make turns from the other direction.

I came to a halt. So did the green-and-white squad car, which I could see in my rear mirror had pulled up just a few inches behind my bumper.

HONK-HONK

Yes, that came from the police car. I kid you not.

Silent Sunday: How to wind me up when I’m late!

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So I’m running late. I’m on the road that leads from our compound to the exit – a road on which there are speed bumps – steep ones, that practically stop your car in its tracks. And I find myself stuck behind a slow-moving construction vehicle, transporting … giant cotton reels?

So I’m running late. I’m on the longish road that leads from our compound to the exit – a road on which there are speed bumps – steep ones, that practically stop your car in its tracks. And I find myself stuck behind a lumbering, slow-moving construction vehicle, transporting … giant cotton reels?

The Dubai tram – it’s on track!

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I can tell you this because I’ve been watching the trams tootling up and down on test runs in recent months. I’ve also lost hours of my life sitting in traffic jams outside Media City, stuck in bottlenecks caused by the dusty construction work.

My commute that used to take 25 minutes took a frustrating hour-and-a-half yesterday, and wasn’t helped by Mr Queue Jumper. You all know him. You’ve paid attention to the construction signs and got in the correct lane. Mr Important has ignored them for miles, and now wants to be let in. (Not going to happen).

Anyway, I’m in quite a good position to be able to tell you that the black-and-white trams look modern and sleek (with a gold suite, as well as silver and women-and-children classes); and along the route there are 17 high-tech stations with platform screen doors – a world first for a tramway.

xxxx

Do NOT stop on tracks – just don’t, ok

Trams might be commonplace in Europe, where they trundle across numerous cities, but here in the Middle East it’s the first of its kind. The ground-based electricity supply should mean the trams don’t actually trundle, but move smoothly along the track without wobble or noise, connecting Dubai Marina, Media City, Internet City, Knowledge Village and a number of luxury hotels.

Whilst sitting in my vehicle banging my head against the steering wheel as cars pile up trying to get round the roadworks, I’ve also noticed there’s a whole new set of traffic signs relating to the tram – because, in another (scary!) first for the region, the carriages will share road space with cars.

Yes, that’s right. With Mr White Van Man – who last drove a rickshaw and now finds himself licensed and working in Dubai, at the helm of a van with strips of yellow-and-black caution tape on the back and his own mobile number on the ‘Am I driving safe?’ bumper sticker – and with other equally menacing road users.

Last-minute extra safety measures are apparently being implemented to prevent collisions with cars and pedestrians – including guards to stop drivers and people from crossing the tramline at unauthorised places. Heavy fines (up to AED30,000) are also being introduced to discourage accidents.

But, let’s just say that, with so many levels of stupidity behind the wheel in Dubai – from Mr Flasher to Mr Let’s Play Chicken to Mr I’ll Just Ram Your Behind Because I’m on the Phone (who I had the pleasure of coming across this week) ¬– I think my route to work is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

There it goes xxx

There it goes: seven coaches of much-needed public transport for Dubai (opening in November)

A little hump day note

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On this hump day, I’m posting about some speed bumps that have appeared on our access road – and I don’t mean small ones; I mean steep, mini hillocks that almost stop your car in its tracks.

Those who know where I live will be well aware of the unique challenges we face out here in our little patch of desert. Challenges like getting home, and leaving the house.

There was the enormous roundabout that vanished overnight, probably while luckless drivers were on it – leaving us with a traffic vortex that funnels you towards Abu Dhabi, rather than home.

We’ve endured the bumpy, pot-holed track that led to our compound – which 4WD’s could just about handle without the exhaust pipe falling off, but meant cars had to pick their way along, dodging craters, at a snail’s pace.

We’ve made sharp, right-angled turns off a busy 6-lane highway, with cement trucks bearing down on our rear-end; and we’ve ploughed through a debris-ridden desert shortcut across sand (when the police weren’t looking). And let’s not forget the number of U-turns it’s possible to make on a daily basis to get home – enough to make you feel like a Weeble with an inner-ear infection.

A far better solution - although Dubai's dress codes could be a problem

A far better solution – although Dubai’s dress code could be a problem

But, then, after six months of dusty construction work and vibrations that I once mistook for a minor earthquake, we were presented with a shiny new, tarmaced access road. A road you could sail along, and a proper entrance and exit off the megahighway.

An exit that confused divers started driving up the wrong way – but, I guess, you can’t have it all.

Anyway, to cut a long story short – the other week, six speed bumps appeared on our new road, far bigger than the ridges inside the compound (where children play). The equivalent, I’d say, to traversing over a hippo’s back. Added to all the other speed bumps in our neighbourhood, they mean an average school-run day involves clunking up and down more than 50 humps.

And would it surprise you to hear that these new sleeping policemen weren’t painted straight away. On that first dark night, a pizza delivery man on a moped was sent flying after failing to see the bumps, and ended up being carted off in an ambulance – poor guy (he was ok, nothing broken, thankfully).

I’m not saying the humps weren’t needed (quite the contrary, many drivers in these parts totally disregard speed limits, making traffic calming measures important); just that we’ve come full circle and appear to be back to a bumpy road. Progress indeed.