"YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY"

Hello to all,

I thought we should talk a little about the traffic and driving here in Dubai. Can we all say, CRAZY... Today I had the lovely experience of driving behind this woman in a red 4 door Nissan sedan. I know this and remember this because she almost killed me and Ava this morning!

Ava and I had dropped the older girls off at school and then we stopped at the Park and Shop for some grocery essentials before heading home. The Park and Shop is located relatively close to Sheikh Zayed Road, which is the main highway here in the city, otherwise known as 11, but everyone calls it by the above. I decided it would be the quickest route home even though I hate to drive on it. Everyone thinks they are the next Jimmie Johnson on that highway. And if you saw and read about all the accidents you would know that they are all NOT the next up and coming Nascar driver. Anyway, the way our exit for the Palm Jumeirah is set up, is that Sheikh Zayed splits at one point and the 3 far right lanes can now access the Palm and Internet City exits. Even if you stay in the far left of the 3 lanes after the split you can still access the main part of Sheik Zayed by just staying in the far left of the three lanes and it will feed you back on to the main highway, (it is only separated by a small wall). Anyway I was following this woman in the far left lane after the split with traffic next to me in the middle lane and the far right lane. All of a sudden she decides to brake, oh and did I forget to tell you that there was no one in front of her, so her braking kind of caught me off guard. But what really caught me off guard was her deciding next to come to a complete STOP in the left lane of the freeway! I really don't ever honk at anyone but this time I laid on the horn. Then she had the audacity to turn slowly to the right and now she is perpendicular with the oncoming traffic in the middle lane. As I passed I'm looking behind me to see what the #$%^ she is doing and watching the car approaching her in the middle lane slam on his brakes while she is completing her turn to go the wrong way now in the far right lane. I knew exactly what she was trying to do, it was like she realized she wanted to stay on Sheikh Zayed and she didn't realize that if she had just stayed in the original lane that we both were in she would have been feed right back on to the main part of the highway. All I thought was that poor woman was either going to kill herself or someone else in the process of her crazy stunt.

People regularly go over 100 mph in the city, even in traffic. They weave in and out of lanes on the freeway going at such high speeds. They will ride literally in your back seat flashing their lights until you get out of there way. One of my friends had an Emirati comment to her that the government should make one lane designated to all the locals because only the locals were good at driving at fast speeds! I said I don't think he reads the newspapers with all the traffic accidents listed.

Every road has on the side or in the medians picture takers. So if you are speeding it will actually take a picture of your car and give you a ticket. Except you don't know that you've gotten a ticket until it comes time to renew your registration, when the woman behind the desk tells you that you've been fined X amount of Durham's for X amount of speeding tickets. We've heard of people having to fork over thousands of dollars to pay for the tickets to get there registration. The other negative about the picture takers is that we all know where they are located. Even I do it, once I know I'm approaching one I make sure I'm not going more than 10 km over the speed limit. Other people you will see pushing 100mph and then slam on the brakes to get by the picture taker and then resume speeding as soon as they've passed!

Everyone will tell you that it will be a miracle if you make it out of Dubai without an accident. Most will tell you to expect at least 1 during your time here! I could go on and on about the driving, like the saying here, "Even if you can see it doesn't mean you can get to it"! You could be driving down the road or freeway and lets say the shopping mall you want to get to is on the west side of the freeway and you are on the east side. 9 times out of 10 there will be no sign saying "exit here for Wafi Mall", you just have to guess and then there are very few roads going over the freeway to get you to the other side. I have literally spent 30 to 45 minutes trying to get to some building I can see but have not a clue as what road will get me over the freeway to there. And forget about Map Quest, they only just started naming all the streets. Everyone does mail at a PO Box, which is fine until you try and tell someone where you live or how to get to the grocery store, hair salon...I could go on and on. One person trying to get me to one of the government offices that I needed to go to for our resident visa printed me out the location from Google Earth! I could make out the streets and the dot that was supposedly the building but forget about street names etc...Oh well what adventures! Maybe by the time I get back to KC I'll be in the running for the next Jimmie Johnson!!

Love to all,

Jennifer