Rules are made to be...?

There's been a lot in the local press lately concerned with roads and traffic in the Emirates. The basic problems are twofold:-

1. Despite a comprehensive network of high-quality highways, traffic jams are becoming the stuff of legend.

2. The UAE has some of the highest traffic accident rates in the world.

The government's solutions to these problems are to construct ever grander highway schemes and to introduce increasingly Draconian traffic laws. Today's Khaleej Times carries a story about proposals for yet more road widening and yesterday's included an article about new federal traffic laws.

The trouble is one of enforcement, or lack of it. Until existing laws are applied equally and transparently, offences will continue to be committed. It is expensive to get caught driving on the hard shoulder, for example, but I've lost count of the number of vehicles that have gone roaring past me as I sit in a traffic jam. Without a credible chance of getting caught and punished there is little incentive to stick to the rules.

Highway carnage continues despite road safety campaigns. It remains commonplace to see the driver of a Land Cruiser driving without a seat belt and with a small child on his lap. I guess in an accident the driver will be protected from injury by his heir-bag. Accidents, it would seem, only happen to other people.

A favourite local party piece is not to queue to exit a highway, but instead to drive all the way to the diverge taper and push in. A typical arrangement might be four lanes of main line and two lanes on the exit slip road. Our ignorant friend and his many acolytes try to push their cars into the queue on the slip road. These cars block the main line slow lane. Thus, each car doing this has a double effect: it takes up space on the slip road and on the main road. On the rare occasions when a police officer stands at the diverge, notebook in hand and licking his pencil in an "if I see you push in you'll get a ticket" sort of way, the misbehaviour largely evaporates - and so does a lot of the congestion.

In common with other parts of the world, the authorities obsess about enforcement of speed limits. According to Dubai Police traffic accident report for 2002, the direct cause of 31% of accidents was 'overspeeding' and it was a contributory factor in over 43%. Dubai is a spectaculary dangerous place to be on the road. In terms of fatal accidents per population the report shows that in 2002 Dubai's roads were over three times as dangerous as the UK. There was a 1:5280 chance of dying in a car crash.

Page 24 of the report acknowledges that '...[speeding] violations bookings by themselves are not a strong enough deterrent...'. One of the biggest causes of accidents was 'lack of consideration for road users', causing over 31% of the accidents. Random lane switching, tailgating, obstruction, to name a few are perpetrated every day with apparent impunity, whilst speed cameras regularly flash anyone more than 10kph above the posted limit in that lucrative way that local authorities love so much.

Frankly, if you've just spent AED 500,000 on your new Mercedes are you seriously going to be worried if you have to pay a few AED 200 fines when the car goes for its annual registration? Even if the fines are AED 500 each or more, is this little more than an inconvenience? It's perfectly possible to drive without a licence, so why worry about disqualification? And what if your cousin's brother-in-law is the uncle of the Police Chief?

To those who seem to be above the law of the UAE: There are other laws that will eventually catch up with you. You might believe that laws about due consideration, speed limits, window tinting, safe stopping distances, driving licences or insurance only apply to other people.

But you can't avoid the laws of Sir Isaac Newton.