Driving: legalised murther & mayhem

Driving in the UAE is an incredible experience. There is NO road rage. Even making rude gestures can get you locked up and deported.
So the amazingly selfish arrogant and stupid driving goes publicly largely uncommented on. We kill a lot of people on the roads. The papers put it down to speed but they are wrong. Speed plays a big part but only because people are so utterly selfish about how they drive.
The Mantra is “I must go first, I must go where I want and when I want and before you”. Consequently even a short line at a traffic light becomes a battleground as people push to the front, ignore lanes, constantly change lanes and tailgate.
And the horn…well if you are at traffic lights the first horn goes off at the lights are changing. Makes a New York minute seem like a lifetime.
It’s hard to convey the selfishness in words – or the self-destructiveness. At the most trivial level, people pushing in to the front of queues or making 4 lanes where only 2 exist slows everyone down – including those pushing in! If they but waited carefully even those who push in to the front would get through more quickly.
At the other end is tailgating at 150kph, lights flashing and overtaking on the inside or on the hard shoulder if you’re a bit slow moving over. Or weaving from lane to lane at full speed to get one car further forward. Or driving the wrong way down a one way street because you don’t want to go round the block. Or never looking in your mirrors. Or not stopping at a junction but pulling straight out into fast moving traffic. Or squeezing between two 70 tonne trucks moving at 100kph so you can exit at the last second rather than pulling in behind. Or ALWAYS pulling in front never behind in case it betrays weakness. And it goes on.
I wonder if this is the only country in the world where people won’t let an Ambulance through!
And lastly … you get extra points for exiting the motorway at the last possible second and making a right angled turn across 7 lanes of fast moving traffic. It’s a macho thing.
I’ve not checked the numbers recently but in 2006 we killed people at about 6 times the rate in the UK. And serious injury much much higher rates.
Many of us make jokes about it. But the truth is the driving culture is murderous. Literally. And the country should be deeply ashamed.