INSHALLAH Today’s rant—I almost died today traveling to and from the refinery! They say that when you smoke a cigarette, you shave minutes off of your life. Well, let me tell you… when you ride in a vehicle in Saudi Arabia, you are probably shaving years off your life… Everybody is very impatient, they drive like a bat out of hell, and have no common courtesy for other drivers, or pedestrians for that matter, hence the majority of the vehicles here have significant body damage! I don’t believe that I have NOT seen at least one accident every day that I have been here. Each day, our driver picks up people from the Holiday Inn, then the IBIS, and then here at the Radisson. Fortunately, we are the last, so our trip is shorter, but the bad part is that there are anywhere from 10-14 of us. We ride in an old 1980’s Toyota bus. People, there are not 14 seats in this vehicle! Everybody refuses to ride in the front seat, because when (NOT IF) the driver hits something, there is nothing protecting you. If you don’t go through the windshield, you are going to be pinned in the front seat… I swear that the drivers here assume a completely different persona and believe that they are a NASCAR driver with zero patience, zero common sense, and often times, zero driving ability! Today, I watched a Saudi in a Crown Victoria go into oncoming traffic, just so they could get in front of us. Cars turning left from the right lane or trying to cut back into traffic from a turning lane is very common here. Roundabout (Middle Eastern alternative to traffic lights) are a joke as no one uses them for their purpose and they become a free for all. The rule of thumb is the “bravest” driver has the advantage by pushing his car into the circle hoping that others will not drive into them. However, nobody gives an inch to anybody. On the way in to the refinery, our driver was so impatient, that he did not want to wait for the light to change, so he crossed into oncoming traffic for about 200 yards, then turn left, as if those were the rules. I also learned today that the slow lane is actually the middle lane. We had that little Toyota pegged out and the little 120 KM alarm was just-a-chimming. We were in the left lane and came were quickly approaching a small little car that obviously didn’t care. Driver slow down? HECK NO! Without missing a beat, he cut off the cars next to us and got into the far right lane, came up to another car, but couldn’t go to the left lane, so he decided to go offroad! Our driver was using the road as his own slalom qualifying run… All-in-all, we ran 7 stop signs and 4 red lights while on the road today. Here is Saudi, they have a saying “Inshallah”. It means God Willing! People drive very crazy here, but if they get in a wreck, they just say “Inshallah”. Meaning that they were driving the way that God wanted them to and it was God that decided that the accident was to happen. When us foreigners get in a wreck with a Saudi, the Saudi will simply tell the police “Inshallah” and the accident becomes our fault. Most drivers here do not even bother to look before they pull out into traffic. The trust in god so much that they believe that he will protect them. Even while pulling into highway traffic. At least our driver uses his headlights… He flashes them at all the cars in front of him. This means that he is coming through and the car in front better move over, because he isn’t stopping! I swear that Saudis believe that headlights can be used as levitation devices. The get close behind the car in front and flash them repeatedly, like you will just float out of the way… Aside from the headlights, all other lights are fashion accessories that are only used to confuse other vehicles. Our driver loves to speed up to the car in front and the hit his hazard lights that warn the driver that is about 2 feet behind us that he is going to stop… How we haven’t been hit, I don’t know… The refinery has a huge push for safety. They make us fill out these safety cards. Required one per day. This is the one that I submitted for today…
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 16:37:17 +0000
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