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ClarkLZeuss wrote:

ELB wrote:Road ragers need to be sent to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for desensitization. Not that the Saudis and all the ex-patriates there are roadragers, its just that grossly excessive speed, cutting each other off, six cars across on four lane street, left turns from any lane of a multi-lane street, running reds, yellows, greens whatever, all horn and accelerator, no brakes...Inshallah...

[snip]

There are some spectacular accidents tho.

Man, I gotta say, this incredible word picture had me laughing my brains out, to the point where my wife asked me, "Are you all right?" like I'm on drugs or something. I've heard, too, that in Saudi Arabia, people drive with their brights on...ALL the time. True?

You know, it seems odd, but I don't really remember whether they had brights on all the time or not. Probably, because consideration for the other driver is not in the Saudi driving code. You seldom meet anyone coming head on (thank Allah!) because like I said above, all roads are one-way. Any kind of two way street without a dump-truck proof divider would be a meat grinder. One problem there was with driving at night outside the cities were camels wandering around loose. (yes really). They are usually black or dark brown, and they really absorb light, so at night it was easy to run up on one wandering across the highway.

I was in Abu Dhabi a few years ago, and traffic was much tamer and well mannered. Nothing like Saudi. Seems to be a unique place...

Road ragers need to be sent to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for desensitization. Not that the Saudis and all the ex-patriates there are roadragers, its just that grossly excessive speed, cutting each other off, six cars across on four lane street, left turns from any lane of a multi-lane street, running reds, yellows, greens whatever, all horn and accelerator, no brakes...Inshallah. They would soon fry out from the intensity of the experience, and driving back in NYC, LA, Houston, or whatever, would then seem so mellow and calm, they'd wonder what they ever got excited about. It's not uncommon in Riyadh to see six or seven cars across a four lane road, all waiting for the light to change (on the occasion that everyone actually stopped), and the first two or three rows all have their left turn signals on --- to turn into a two lane street. (Note: all streets in Riyadh are one way, or they have a SUBSTANTIAL median barrier down the center. Otherwise there would be 100-car pile-ups on each block). Once the light changes, the race is on, and because most of the vehicles are white, it looks like you dropped a sack of white rats with automobile horns in the intersection, and they are all trying to run through the same hole to the cheese at the same time.

The Ring Road that goes around the city is something like a giant NASCAR circuit, without the decals. People everywhere like to talk about 100 mile per hour drivers, but on the Ring Road and the major highways, they really do run 100+. The Ring Road and the major highways have an emergency lane on both sides, left and right, and we called the left one the "Allah" lane -- because if Allah hadn't intended for you to drive on it, he wouldn't have had it built, would he? And you better be hauling donkey when you are in that lane, otherwise you will have somebody parked in your trunk in no time.

Most (all?) are petrified when they first drive there, and it takes them forever to get someplace (and they get honked at and cursed in multiple languages) because they are way too slow, too chicken, and they never get thru the intersection. Eventually you learn you have to take the same chances everyone else does, and you start doing some extreme drivng yourself -- darting thru gaps in the traffic, forcing your car thru four lanes in 30 yards to make your next turn off, slaloming between slower vehicles full of chickens and such, cutting across a vacant lot because the intersection is all jammed up, pushing you car inch-by-inch inbetween others during a traffic jam -- things your driver's ed instructor never even envisioned. You get yelled at and honked at a lot, I used to blow kisses back -- would make'em madder. Amazingly enough, it mostly works and everyone gets where they are going. Sometimes with a few dents.

There are some spectacular accidents tho.