My first driving experience in Dubai was not with me behind the wheel...
I was picked up by one of our company drivers and driven from my hotel to my office in Sharjah. The driver (whom I have since got to know quite well after spending numerous hours in traffic together) seemed pleasant and would answer any of my tourist-like questions along the way..."What building is that?" and "Where are we now?"...you get the picture. I was new and had no idea of where I was.
Whilst it was early morning, it was nonetheless extremely busy on the roads and I was astounded by the amount of traffic, the speed that vehicles were travelling at and the (almost) complete disregard for road rules. I had seen a bit of it the day before, but this was the first time I was experiencing what it would be like to travel to my office each day - quite an eye-opener.
Having now been here for several months, my assessment of the level of driving skill, courtesy, regard for other road users and common sense is so far below anything I have ever experienced before, that I would have to say it is probably the most dangerous place I have ever driven a vehicle. This may sound exaggerated, but I kid you not, driving in Dubai, and pretty much any of the Emirates (states) in the UAE, is not for the faint-hearted.
I was provided with a driver and vehicle by my company for the first 2 weeks and after that I was on my own in a (very) small rental car. I have to admit that during first 2 weeks of watching my driver and the traffic go hell-for-leather with each other at insane speeds (+120Km/hr), I was really, really worried. I have always felt that I am a driver of reasonable abilities, but my concern(s) was not with my driving, but moreso with all of the other irresponsible idiots on the roads. This fact, along with my then minimal knowledge of the roads, directions to travel and the inability to simply do a U-turn on the majority of roads made for some very tense and frustrating moments in the first few weeks of driving here.
One more than one occasion (sometimes 2 or 3 times in the one journey) I would get lost, try to re-trace my route and become even more hopelessly lost. Again, more than once, I would end up doing "laps" of the same route whilst trying to get home and what should have been a 45 minute trip would end up taking me up to 2 hours. I have to say that at one point I was ready to pull-over, park the car and catch a taxi. Nevertheless I persisted and eventually I started learning which lane to be in in order to get to the right destination. A number of Dubai's main roads are multi-laned and it is imperative to know which lane to be in when you are getting close to the exit you need to take - otherwise you just end up going the wrong way (or worse still taking the wrong exit) and become frustrated about how you are going to get back on track. It also does not help that a lot of the roads and exits are poorly marked (signs literally ony a couple of hundred metres from the exit or turn-off and traffic at high speeds make for some very dangerous manouevres). And sometimes the signs you are looking for are obstructed by construction work or trees or other objects.
My overall impression of driving here is that it would be great if it weren't for all the other drivers...so many of them obviously come from countries where there is poor road-use etiquette and little or nor policing of road rules and hence they bring with them the same bad habits. Equally, the local population (Emirati) have shockingly bad driving habits - poor lane discipline, high-speed weaving from lane to lane, no use of indicators, excessive speeding, tail-gating literally inches from the car in front at very high speeds...unfortunately the local police seem to either ignore all of this behaviour or accept it, particularly as I have seen many police cars doing some or all of the above at one time or another.
There is a very good (and very funny but true) description of some of the local driving "habits" by a local well-known blogger which is worth reading. You can click on this link to read it:
http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/dubai-driving-tips.html
There is also a very funny video clip on YouTube about driving in Dubai and how mindless some drivers really are (having seen some of this behaviour first-hand, I think it is hilarious, but unfortunately very sad and true). Here is a link to the YouTube clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfPTGTGLA3E
I will post some photos of driving conditions here soon.
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