Word of the Week: Sustainable

Take a cross section of a cow's aorta about an inch long, then silver plate it. Now you have an object that looks precisely like the Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport, advertised today to a grateful nation and created for our listening pleasure by the Dubai Roads & Transport Authority or RTA. This follows the marvellous and admirable Blue Communities initiative for sustainable coastal communities from uber-developer Nakheel, launched earlier this week after the usual pointless, sorry I meant to say marvellous, expensive teaser campaign.

What, asks the inquisitive mind as it scans the screen, could the RTA possibly want to award us for? A cynical mind might assert that surely the only award we all want is the ability to travel around the city with at least relative ease.

The award, according to the advertisement with the cow's aorta on it, is to 'encourage organizations and companies to play an active role to implement the most innovative and effective initiatives in the field of sustainable transportation'. How very interesting.

Incidentally, Wikipedia defines sustainable transport, at least in part, as "a reaction to some of the things that have gone radically and visibly wrong with transportation policy." Which struck me as pretty much bang on.

The advertisement points you to the RTA website for further information about the award, categories and evaluation criteria. Sadly, when I went there to take a look at this most fascinating thing this morning, the website had crashed spectacularly.

So I shall have to wait to see how the RTA intends to award me. In the meantime, here are some suggested award categories.

1) Longest wait in morning traffic

2) Longest wait in evening traffic

3) Longest wait full stop

4) Longest run up the hard shoulder to avoid the traffic

5) The Dubai Foot on the Dashboard Award

6) Kerb Crawler of the Year

7) Fastest headlight flasher

8) Arrogant, aggressive, inconsiderate, dangerous git of the year

9) Short cut to work of the year (entry not open to the three RTA cars that use mine every morning: an irony that fills my heart with stuff)

10) The Dubai Darwin Award (for the most pointless self-inflicted death)

I had to stop there, but please don't hesitate to make more suggestions. Maybe, by the time the website is up, we can compare lists...

Yes! The race is on to win that cross-section of arterial matter!

Salik. Nyer Nyer Told You!

I've got little to add to what is destined to be a tide of furious blogs on the news today that ten new Salik gates will be built, an expansion of Dubai's road toll system which will ensure that every which way you turn in Dubai, you'll get nailed. Those coming from Sharjah, Ittihad to Garhoud, will get nailed twice.

Mattar Al Tayer, the 'traffic expert', said that RTA was not considering expanding the scheme. I predicted back in July that this was dissembling. I'm sad to have been proved right.

And, again, appallingly communicated.

Some time ago, during the original fuss about Salik, I posted a wholly unhelpful Q&A on Salik. One of the questions was 'What happens if a chance stone hits my windscreen and the tag is damaged?' - of course, God has his way of doling out punishment - my windscreen now has a nice crack right across it from such a stray stone and, a police report, garage visit and insurance claim later, I'm now thoroughly irritated to find I have to buy a new blasted Salik tag. The good news is that they say they can transfer the balance. Let's see...

Money Can't Buy Me Salik

The potty Salik road toll system continues to amaze me. I ran out of credit a couple of weeks ago and, for one reason or another, I haven't managed to top it up. It's just been a mad time and every time I remember or am near a service station I've either been in a mad tear to get to a meeting or I haven't had cash on me. Because, of course, you can only pay for the blasted toll in cash.

A while ago they announced that you could pay online, so I toddled off to their website (www.salik.ae) to do just that. Imagine my delight when I saw that the module was up and running!

So I entered my account number, PIN code and mobile number and then went downstairs to the car to find the tag number because for some reason the system doesn't know my tag number automatically (a miracle of technology integration, is Salik). And then went to the 'Recharge' option on the menu, entered Dhs 250 as my recharge amount and pressed 'Next' to take me to the egovernment epay service and make my payment.

Nothing happened. Because it doesn't work. It's not broken or anything like that: it simply just isn't working. And I've been going back over the past week or so just to check that it still doesn't work.

So I checked my balance (32 Dhs apparently, but I know that it is -32 Dhs) and my violations (no violations).

No violations? Yes! No violations!

Genius. You can't pay for it, but it doesn't matter because nothing happens when you don't pay for it. Which makes it completely, utterly and totally pointless.

Which is what so many of us have been saying all along, I know...

Sharjah Bad Traffic Day

Dubai traffic is normally bad, but Sharjah definitely took the biscuit this morning. The airport road was jammed, the Emirates road gridlocked back from the notorious National Paints to the airport road exit (RAK to Dubai in 45 minutes! Yeah, right). If you could have bottled all that misery and frustration then you'd have a bottle of misery and frustration.
We sailed through it in the main, thanks to many years' experience of snickets, back-routes and sneaky little hops, although even out in the desert roads there were cars backed up left, right and centre. But the biggest surprise of the day was yet to come.
The little bit of desert I hop across on the way to work was absolutely heaving with cars: every kind of four wheel drive imaginable was bogged down and they all had one thing in common.
They were all locals.
Now I can remember pal Matthew getting his Wrangler bogged on a beach in Umm Al Qawain and a local bloke sailing past him, laughing, shouting in glee and waving his arms at the helpless Matt as he gunned the engine of his Nissan Sunny.
I can remember in Falaj Al Moalla seeing a Chevrolet Brougham beating a Land Cruiser up a dune in a straight race, the Chevy absolutely bog standard except for its local driver, who must have killed the clutch in that one victorious impossibility.
I can remember seeing a local driving a Mercedes up Big Red - and many other unfeasible sights did Big Red (now, thanks to the volume of cars that ply its slopes, reduced to Little Red) give up over the years - and every time there was a local at the wheel, making cars do what they're simply not supposed to do on the sand.
In fact, I have many years of happy memories of locals driving cars in the desert with incredible skill, breakneck derring-do and a seeming disregard for life and limb that has never been less than jaw-droppingly impressive.
But I can never remember seeing so many nationals bogged down in any piece of sand, let alone a straightforward set of small dunes and tracks - in winter, too, when the sand is harder. It has forced me to reach a conclusion.
They don't make locals like they used to...

UAE Car Crash Nationality Chart

If you’re tempted to have a car crash, then do keep this handy chart so that you know where you’re likely to stand.

1. Khaleeji
2. Brit
3. Aussie/South African
4. Yank
5. Other Euro
6. French
   
7. Korean
8. Japanese
9. Lebanese/Jordanian
10. Syrian
    
11. Iraqi
12. Egyptian
13. Palestinian
14. Other Arab
15. Sudanese
16. Philipina
17. Philipino
18. Indian
19. Pakistani
20. Chinese
21. Nepalese
22. Bangladeshi
23. Pathan
24. Tibetan
25. Afghan

Notes

Does not take into account relative status ie: British shop assistant vs Chinese Ambassador. This complicates things, obviously.

Does not take into account ethnic origin. So, for instance, South African passport holder of Goan extraction tends to confuse things a little. Nobody’s fooled by a Lebanese name holding a Canadian passport, so it’s probably best not to try.

Does not take into account linguistic ability. If you’re able to speak Arabic, move yourself up a couple of notches.

Does not take recent world events into account. If you’re Pakistani and you’ve just lost to Ireland in the cricket then you’ll probably move up on the sympathy vote.

Does not take personality into account. Move down three notches if you’re an argumentative, arrogant twat. It’s OK, you’ll still be just ahead of the rest of Europe.

Does not take the facts of what happened into account. However, this doesn’t really matter as a) the other person will lie outrageously, b) the copper will in all likelihood refuse to understand the blindingly obvious evidence burnt into the tarmac in front of him and c) nobody really wants the inconvenience of prolonging the whole sorry episode and if you get all dogmatic you’ll just end up down at the cop shop being told you’ll have to lodge a civil suit.

Does not take alcohol into account. You really don’t want to have had a couple of sundowners before this happened. Go to the bottom of the pile instantly and get mentally prepared to dine on biryani.

If your country of origin is not listed above, use the country nearest to yours.

Salik Reprised

Pretty much every Dubai blog has posted loads of grumpy stuff about Salik, the glorious answer to Dubai traffic blues, this one being no exception. I've desisted for some time now, precisely because pretty much anything useful or interesting that could be said had been said.

But I couldn't resist this.

This is a photograph of the Garhoud Road just before you get to Wafi, taken during 'home time' this week. Don't worry, I wasn't taking a photograph whilst moving. The traffic had just started a jerk forwards for a few yards before it stopped again. The left hand lane was crawling in a start/stop action.

See? Salik IS working!!!

Ramadan Sparkles

There seems to be glass everywhere, for the last few days there have been small swathes of it on the roads: little sparklings at every U-turn and intersection. I’ve never seen so much glass.

And now, as I get to the head of the tailback on the Awir Road, there’s more glass than usual. It’s scattered across the road, a dragon’s treasure trove of scintillae glittering in the sunshine, a slight blue-green tinge to the little jewels, piled up like a Swarovski display cabinet. And in the middle of this sea of glass, an old Nissan Patrol, short wheel-base, lying on its roof, every window popped, the roof crushed. The Indian man lying flat on his back up along the concrete divider is wearing a pink shirt and brown trousers and he’s horribly still. The man in the blue shalwar khamis doesn’t quite know what to do: he picks the man’s head up in his arms, lays it down gently, stands up, crouches down, looks around.

The glass is crunching under the tires now, the feeling of fingers on dishwasher-dry squeaky crystal: the piercing squeak of glass on glass and occasional pop of shards squeezed into flight. A horrible, nails on blackboard shudder passes down my spine.

Another Ramadan evening drive home, then.

Headline of the Year

This has to be headline of the year. Today's Gulf News:

Do not watch TV while driving, police warn motorists

Isn't that simply brilliant? According to GN, the place where the real news happens, Dubai Police have warned residents that television screens in the front of cars are 'hazardous and distract motorists'.

Wait for the followup warning stories: Do not run carrying scissors. Do not set fire to own hair. Do not jump off tall buildings.

Dubai Traffic

I’m a giant, lying on a bed of cars, thrashing in my nightmare and rolling over, crushing roofs, glass splintering. I’m staggering through the traffic, snaking lines of it spiralling into a smoking, choking infinity. Effed up on something: a nasty acid badness and a metallic taste in my mouth. Sudden awareness: you don’t taste in dreams. A fear rush, then; not good on acid. Calm down before things get really twisted, you’re centred. Think of trees, sitting under trees. Woodlands, birds singing; the hills and Julie Andrews.

Shit, that was a mistake. Julie Andrews has ripped me out of slomo and brought me in a rush back to realtime like a webcam taped to the front of the Kyoto Bullet train and I’m back, staggering in the grey smog, cars jostling around me.

It’s bumper to bumper and they’re aggressive: I can see one face snarling out of a window at me, blank-eyed, lycanthropic and dripping streams of saliva from the yellowed teeth revealed by its drawn back lips. I stumble backwards in fear, hit another car moving slowly behind me, a horn loud and piercing my ears as I start to lose my legs and drop to my knees. I can hear an insane keening, a banshee howl of pain and realise it’s my own voice, faltering now that I'm collapsing, choking on the thick, billowing fumes. I’m down on my belly trying to get up but I can’t move. I can feel it looming over me and the bumper nudges the back of my head as the wheel starts to roll up my leg. I can feel the slow, rolling pressure crushing my ankle, squeezing my calf muscle and veins popping...

It’s true, you know. Dubai’s traffic is a nightmare…

RTA Quote of The Year

No sooner had I finished posting up a grumpy slice of whingeing about Salik than the morning papers landed with their customary 'thud' and with them the news that the new Floating Bridge over Dubai creek was shut yesterday morning for hours, causing massive and widespread chaos and misery on the roads.

Why?

According to Dubai's RTA (Roads and Transport Authority), quoted by Gulf News: "The bridge was closed for about two hours as part of the contingency plan to conduct some technical experiments during the peak hours so as to ensure that the emergency system works effectively using the smart traffic systems."

This is the finest, rarest, premium quality doublespeak. Not even Sir Humphrey Applebey could ever have reached these heights. This obfuscatory blither is the result of the hard work of a truly brilliant team of communications professionals and I salute them all individually and collectively.

Salik Surprises

So much has been written about Dubai’s congestion charge, Salik, that it’s difficult to contemplate adding to what’s already out there without a certain sense of resignation and perhaps a touch of fear that it’s just going to be a repetition of the considerable volume of incredulity, indignation, anger and exasperated invective that has peppered so many blogs over the past couple of months. Even the media, ever-aware of the burden of governmental disapproval, has tried to reflect the broad public dislike of the scheme. Strangely, few of the people who have complained appear to have been motivated to do so by the financial impact: it has been the apparent lack of a clear objective or a well-communicated plan of any sort that has drawn much of the negative comment in both on and off-line media. The response of the RTA, to the broad public concern has, at its least helpful, been to tell the public to stow it because they’re ‘not traffic experts’. The flow of information regarding the scheme and the ‘traffic management objectives’ that we’re told about as we hold for the Salik call centre to finish ‘helping’ other callers has hardly ever been more than a grudging trickle.

I am one of those people whose mobile numbers were ‘given wrongly’: I still have the copy of the form in which my mobile number is given with perfect clarity. I corrected the error over the ‘phone last week when I got through to their call centre. Today I got an SMS telling me that my balance of Dhs 2 was insufficient and that I should top up or face a fine. Now, forgive me, but I thought that one of the ideas was that you’d get an SMS warning you that your balance was low. Apparently not.

So I went to top up. I have to confess I was a little annoyed at having to do this on the spur of the moment rather than with a couple of crossings’ notice, but never mind. The Emarat station just prior to the Garhoud toll only has one till that can take Salik top-ups because they only have one pad of Salik top up forms – a rather analogue, multipart book of slips.

I can pay my phone bill using online and telephone banking, as well as my electricity and water bill. I can pay my traffic fines and I can even renew my PO box online.

But I have to top up my Salik account by filling in a cloakroom slip? So be it. I aimed to top up with a nice Dhs250 so that I wouldn't have to do it again for a good while. So I gave the girl my Visa card. Which is when I discovered you can only pay for Salik by cash.

What a muckle-headed slice of totally incompetent daftness.

But I’m not finished by a long chalk. You see, I then drove over Garhoud to hit the tailback immediately after the bridge. Because it’s gridlocked over Maktoum and the new Floating Bridge through City Centre and up the Ittihad Road to Sharjah. Because the traffic that’s crossed Business Bay to avoid Salik joins Garhoud a couple of hundred meters after the very bridge that this Salik scheme was meant to keep clear. It’s caused worse traffic congestion in the whole Deira area than we have every seen before and THIS IS SUMMER TRAFFIC – the number of cars on the road is something like 25% less than normal.

I thought I’d get a few laughs out of Salik but I, along with a lot of other people, have stopped laughing. Come September, when the traffic levels ramp back up to their usual heaving stock car race levels, there’ll be a whole lot more people not laughing.

Someone should really start doing some explaining.

NOT The Salik FAQ - Questions About The Dubai Road Toll Dodged Elegantly

Obviously based on a huge amount of entirely unhelpful speculation, here’s the FAQ that answers the questions that the official FAQ doesn’t answer!

What happens if I sell my car?

You have to peel the tag off your windscreen, which damages the tag, so you have to buy a new tag. It might leave some bits of plastic and gucky adhesive on the windscreen, but we can’t be sure yet because we haven’t left a tag stuck to a window in the 55C sun for three months yet. Let alone tried doing that for a couple of years. But we’re sure it’ll be OK. Anyway, why should you care? It’s not your car anymore, is it?

Yes, it’s a Dhs50 car sale tax. Well, Dhs 100 really, ‘cos the bloke that’s buying your car has to get a new tag, too.

Do Salik tags go brown and brittle after a couple of years in the sun like everything else around here (including the people)?

No. Yes. We’re not sure. But they’ll still work, so what’s your problem?

Will they? Really? Work?

Yes.

Sure?

Yyyyyes. Almost. But if they don’t we’ll sort that out.

How?

We just will, alright?

What happens to any available balance on my Salik tag when I sell my car?

Good question. You should really get it refunded, shouldn’t you? The money would logically be held against your Salik account rather than the physical tag. You should call the Salik centre to ‘deactivate the tag’ before you sell your car, according to the official FAQ, but there’s nothing about transferring the balance or anything like that. Interesting one. We’re sure it’ll be sorted out for the best. Really. Trust us.

What happens if a chance stone hits my windscreen and the tag is damanged?

You’re being for real here? Right. You buy a new windscreen and a new tag. Da. Are you asking if that tag can be added to your account or if you just add a new tag to your account? Well, that depends. We’ll basically make up the rules for that one as it happens. OK?

What happens if I don’t have a tag at all?

You mean how are we going to catch you? Not sure. Guess we’ll have to wait and see. Alexander’s money is on a photo-based system, which is going to leave someone combing through an awful lot of number plate photos.

If I drive through the Salik tollgate backwards, do I get a refund?

Nice idea, but I rather doubt it will work, don’t you?

More anon... >:)

For Whom The Toll Bills

So Dubai's Roads & Transport Authority is introducing the much-awaited and suspiciously regarded Salik toll system next month. The system is based on RFID technology and will charge 4Dhs (a tad over a dollar) each time you cross the popular Garhoud Bridge or pass Mall of the Emirates on the Sheikh Zayed Road. Your Salik tag is stuck to the windscreen and automatically deducted when you pass the charge point and can be recharged by credit card, at ATMs, over the Web and so on. The application form's finally available online, by the way!

All pretty advanced stuff. And by no means a bad thing if it reduces congestion and accidents - although according to media reports, Dubai Police have reservations about the system and its implementation.

It took a wife to pose, with the irrefutable power of female logic, the question I hadn't thought of at all: "How will you know what your balance is?"

How indeed. If you let your tag run out and pass a charge point, it'll cost you Dhs50 - so you really don't want to let that tag lag. The good news is that you get an SMS when your account's running low, according to the RTA, and you can also query your balance with an SMS. And if you recharge within 48 hours of the offence, you'll get let off.

All of which is reassuring. But there's a lot of technology going on in there, from the RFID scanners to the core IT system to the financial management software to the SMS gateway that will manage tens of thousands of messages a day. Add in a couple of million of those messy, organic carbon-based life forms that appear to exist purely to get around, muck about with or otherwise frustrate grand schemes like this and I think that we might all be in for some fun here.

Summer surprises indeed!!!

Murder Mile

People used to call it 'Murder Mile' because of the accident rate, but of recent years it's become too much of a car park for there to be any serious accidents. And now they powers that be have shut the road between Dubai and Sharjah and installed a couple of sneaky and highly disruptive diversions as work starts on a new six-lane underpass to replace the infamous bottleneck that is the Galadari Roundabout/Al Mulla Plaza underpass/overpass system.

Every road out of Dubai was blocked tonight. Every possible snicket and witty little short cut was jam packed with advantage-seeking optimists. The new Business Bay Bridge had become the Business Bay Tailback. Even my beloved two minute dune drive was littered with people who'd never taken their 4WDs in dunes before and so who were bogged down to the bonnets in the lovely soft, creamy sand that the recent hot weather has brought us. And no, I didn't stop and tow them out. I usually would. But by the time I got to them tonight, I was only fit to call down a plague upon all their houses.

I can only hope that the traffic dynamic adapts to the new system and settles down quickly. I never thought I'd actually come to appreciate Murder Mile!!!