When my beautiful wife M suggested I write a guest post for her blog, I sat dumbfounded as to what topic to write about. For those of you that know me personally, you are aware of my love for cars, watches, music and atrocious horror or kung-fu films. However, most people find watches uninteresting, my music taste still is still stuck in MC Hammers parachute pants the 90s, and only a few outside of my Steven Segal fan club find Seven Samurai or the Walking Dead to be enthralling. Naturally, that left my love of cars – a perfect fit for Saudi.
Due to the nature of the construction industry, safety and awareness are not just practiced religiously, but are engrained in our company culture. As an example, each and every meeting we have begins with a “Safety Topic” in order to promote awareness and continually strengthen that culture. During my first meeting in Kingdom, our project director opened with “Driving in Saudi” as a safety topic. At the time I did not fully appreciate the meaning, but after a year in Kingdom, and almost 365 similar safety topics later, this is my attempt to summarize my experiences.
Location – Location - Location
M and I have an unprecedented love for traveling. However, this passion comes with the re-occurring theme of constant relocation. Growing up in the North East of the United States I learned how to drive in all weather conditions while sitting in traffic listening to Kris Kross. Living in Wisconsin taught me the true meaning of appreciating the dangers of snow and ice. Living in the southeast I learned what it meant to be a ‘southern gentlemen’ in an automobile. Driving in Mumbai taught me how to avoid livestock and other obstacles in the road. After 12 years of refining various driving techniques and experiences I still was not quite prepared for driving in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Faster & More Furious
The inspiration for this blog stems from the latest release of Fast 5 – the fifth movie in the Fast & Furious series. The movie was entertaining, but could have used Chuck Norris or Van Dam. When I sit back and think of what driving in Saudi really entails, I think of the fast and ferocious pace in which drivers make decisions you would least expect. Let’s take something as simple as a left turn. Now for you western drivers everywhere in the world, except New Jersey, you would expect that the lane ‘marked’ as the turn lane would be your only option for turning left. You sir would be WRONG! In Saudi if you are fast enough, or not, and in the far right lane, or any, you can manage to turn left my simply pretending there are no cars around and having complete disregard for the safety of others.
Most of the lights in kingdom have a nice countdown to turning green. I would compare it to a drag race where two cars are lined up revving their engines waiting for the gorgeous model to drop the flag. However, in Saudi, when the “flag drops” the 1st car speeds off, but layers of impatient drivers behind you lay on the horn endlessly. Due to this incredibly annoying and unnecessary behavior, I have yet to fully enjoy a Pearl Jam track without the annoyances of honking and yelling.
About a decade ago the Saudi government realized that people needed to slow down as Saudi Arabia captured the title of most vehicle accidents and deaths per capita in the world. Their answer to this was an ingenious innovation that would make Steve Jobs proud (R.I.P Steve Jobs). Try and stay with me here but each vehicle was now required to install a speed warning indicator for aid the driver in identifying their speed. This warning is the infamous 120 km / hour beep. When a car goes ~75 mph (120 km / hr) your car starts beeping. As if there was not already enough beeping going on, adding some additional annoyances in the form of diluted honking sounds was surely going to slow drivers down.
For you New-Yorkers out there, how many times have you experienced the a-hole that ‘double-parked’ and blocked you in? In Saudi Arabia you would go as far as to thank someone for deciding to double park instead of triple or quadruple parking.
Have you ever been blocked by a semi trying to back-into a delivery dock? No big deal – in Saudi turn on your flashers and start heading down wrong way traffic – the flashers will protect you.
Here are 8 basic rules and assumptions to serve as a guideline when driving in Saudi Arabia:
- Always assume the car that would “surely not” pull out in front of you, will with certainly do exactly that.
- Do not be afraid to use your horn. If you do not use your horn you will appear a foreigner. On the other hand, the use of your signals will definitely flag you as a foreigner.
- Do not concern yourself with lanes as they only serve as guidelines.
- If you are not going too fast, you are going too slow.
- When high beams are flashed at you, it does not mean there is cop up ahead, it means “get the Fu** out my way.”
- The shoulder of the road is just the ‘overflow’ lane.
- It is socially acceptable to park your car into someone else’s and leave it that way.
- In the event you are involved in a car crash, do not call you insurance company, call a body guard as you will be fighting.
Based on these stories alone, most of you can imagine how fun it is to drive in Saudi. There is a clear lack of law enforcement and assimilation is necessary to be able survive the road. My natural instinct to slow down when I see a police officer is slowly fading – a dangerous combination for when we re-patriot back to the states. I have always been more aggressive than careful. My Mother used to be an advocate of the proper use of the “Oh Sh*t” bar that resides on the passenger dashboard. In Saudi Arabia, the “Oh Sh*t” bar takes on a new meaning and has been renamed the “Oh Sh*t, what the Fu** is happening right now??” bar.
Oil Money
Finally, for those car lovers out there this is an incredible place to live. There is an overwhelming presence of foreign exotics and fast American muscle made cars. There is also the ‘I can’t believe you spent that much on a civic’ factor. Since living in the kingdom I have seen several Ferraris, Lamborghini Murcielagos, 911 Turbo’s, Audi R8’s, M series Beemers, and the beautiful Mercedes S65 AMGs. There also appears to be a cult following for the American muscle car here. I have seen several restored muscle cars but my knowledge of them is limited. In the same breath I can also say I have seen a Honda accord with Burberry interior, a gold plated Bentley, a dodge charger with ‘ARAB MONEY’ inscribed in the rear window and a restored Cadillac Eldorado with graffiti all over it . To date, I have yet to see any low riders sitting on three wheels but promise to keep an eye out.
-R
