Bad Drivers

I know I've posted on this before, but I am still in amazement at how bad people drive here. I have to drive about 30 minutes to and from Julian's school twice a day, three days a week. The amount of near accidents I see is mind boggling. Too many to count. People are either cutting off three lanes of traffic by turning left from the far right lane, or pulling out onto the road without looking, or changing lanes without looking, or weaving in and out of traffic, cutting you off, etc.

The other night, Thursday the 7th of October, there was a massive accident on the Emirates Road. From what I understand (can't find the information anywhere online, just heard it from friends who arrived at the scene shortly after it had happened), two SUVs were racing on the northbound side, lost control, hit each other and sent one car flying over the divider onto the southbound side. Besides the mess that the other car caused on the northbound side, the car on the southbound side somehow caused a truck carrying large cement blocks to land on top of several other cars and shear off the front of the truck (we saw it on the side of the road yesterday). Then other cars who were driving at fast speeds in both directions (and not paying attention, as per usual), couldn't stop in time and hit into the accidents. I think something like 20 cars were involved. I have no idea how many people died. Will post a link when I find it.

Then, coming home last night from a birthday party for one of Julian's friends, we passed about 4 ambulances and a flat bed with a sedan on it (missing a door). We then saw in front of the mall by our house a van that had been completely overturned and the door missing from that car. That accident probably also unfortunately involved one or more pedestrians, as many laborers live across the street way up the hill. Since they have Fridays off, on Thursday nights, they walk God knows how many kilometers down the hill to the mall. Often, due to a combination of their poor street crossing judgement and the ridiculously fast driving of people, some end up dead.

You take your life in your hands. And that's why we have a big a car.