Rules of the road?
There are two different failures in driving on the roads in Dubai, one with an obvious solution, one not.
The first group of awful drivers are the product of the Driving Instruction system here - pupils are required to take a lengthy and expensive series of 'lessons', yet many of the worst offenders appear to be the instructors themselves. Next time you come across a school car without a pupil in it, observe the driving. Do they use mirrors? Indicators? The correct lane? Do they anticipate and accommodate other road users, do they demonstrate courtesy and consideration behind the wheel? Or are they teaching their poor, vulnerable, gullible pupils all the worst habits that we daily encounter on the roads of this city?
The solution seems obvious - in order to have better drivers, we need better instructors. Properly trained, equipped, licensed and remunerated, obviously. But we also need a common, agreed and understood set of rules for them to teach, a combination of courtesy, roadcraft and legislation, designed to ensure safe, smooth and efficient passage for all road users around this city. The UK Highway Code would be a good place to start, but there must be other equivalent systems, perhaps better and more appropriate to this region, which we could adopt as a standard. Any suggestions?
The other group are more difficult, those who know what the rules are, but ignore them anyway. Here I include especially all the hard shoulder queue jumpers, the lane bargers, the light flashers and crazy speeders whose lives are so much more valuable and important than ours, whose right to be at the head of the queue outweighs any other drivers need or right to travel on the same road. Here I think a solution is not more cameras and radars (useful though these might be), but more active policing of the known trouble spots. Nothing would be more effective than the embarrasment and inconvenience of a roadside booking, of being caught and made to publicly suffer the consequences of their inconsideration. I have seen it in action on roads around the Greens, but sadly not often enough. The deterrent effect seems to last only a few days, and the perpetrators go straight back to their old habits. More, please.
The first group of awful drivers are the product of the Driving Instruction system here - pupils are required to take a lengthy and expensive series of 'lessons', yet many of the worst offenders appear to be the instructors themselves. Next time you come across a school car without a pupil in it, observe the driving. Do they use mirrors? Indicators? The correct lane? Do they anticipate and accommodate other road users, do they demonstrate courtesy and consideration behind the wheel? Or are they teaching their poor, vulnerable, gullible pupils all the worst habits that we daily encounter on the roads of this city?
The solution seems obvious - in order to have better drivers, we need better instructors. Properly trained, equipped, licensed and remunerated, obviously. But we also need a common, agreed and understood set of rules for them to teach, a combination of courtesy, roadcraft and legislation, designed to ensure safe, smooth and efficient passage for all road users around this city. The UK Highway Code would be a good place to start, but there must be other equivalent systems, perhaps better and more appropriate to this region, which we could adopt as a standard. Any suggestions?
The other group are more difficult, those who know what the rules are, but ignore them anyway. Here I include especially all the hard shoulder queue jumpers, the lane bargers, the light flashers and crazy speeders whose lives are so much more valuable and important than ours, whose right to be at the head of the queue outweighs any other drivers need or right to travel on the same road. Here I think a solution is not more cameras and radars (useful though these might be), but more active policing of the known trouble spots. Nothing would be more effective than the embarrasment and inconvenience of a roadside booking, of being caught and made to publicly suffer the consequences of their inconsideration. I have seen it in action on roads around the Greens, but sadly not often enough. The deterrent effect seems to last only a few days, and the perpetrators go straight back to their old habits. More, please.
posted by EyeOnDubai at 11:41 pm
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