THE AUTOMOBILE.
"What?" I hear you asking. "Cars? What's wrong with cars?"
There's nothing wrong with cars. But there's a great deal wrong with drivers. I learned to drive in Canada. Smallish-town Canada, for that matter. I can drive in rain (boy, can I drive in rain) and snow and sleet. I can drive in fog. You throw any kind of weather at me, and I can drive in it.
Or, at least I could before we moved to New York. Because no one drives in New York City. Apart from a couple of jaunts when I was home to visit, I went five years without driving. I can tell you how to get to Point Z from Point A on the New York subway system, but I've lost my nerve when it comes to sitting behind a wheel.
Abu Dhabi is a driving city. Everyone drives. Gas is cheap, cars are plentiful, and absolutely nothing is walking distance from anything else. It's the exact opposite of New York.
So, here's the other problem: this little Canadian can drive in any kind of weather, but she learned to drive on two-lane roads. At most, the roads I drove would widen out to four lanes, two in each direction, where you only ever had to pay attention to what the driver in the next lane over was doing.
Abu Dhabi is a huge grid of superblocks bounded by vast, multi-lane highways. To go anywhere, you have to travel on these crazy streets of four to six lanes in EACH direction. U-turns aren't just accepted--they're normal. You need to make them all the time. Inside the superblocks are smaller streets, usually one-way, and usually crowded with people and cars.
Drivers. Are. Crazy. Maybe it's because they come from all over: Abu Dhabi is full of expatriates from the US and Canada and the UK and Australia and India. Everyone drives differently. Some people use their turning signals. Most people don't.
You know how, in Canada, you learn to leave a two-second gap between vehicles? For safety? Here? NO SUCH THING. Drivers squeeze into impossibly small spaces between cars. They pass on the shoulder (I have, on at least one occasion, seen people simply DRIVING on the shoulder. Yes. Treating it like another lane, when it clearly is not). They drive fast. They drive stupid.
And it is terrifying.
Still, I dutifully went and got my license. (And, wow, talk about efficient! I have never had an experience like it. I was in and out with a new United Arab Emirates driving license in less time than it took to drive to the office to start out with! And, hey, it's even a reasonably good picture.)
I have been out driving exactly twice in the two weeks since then. Both times to the grocery store. Ten minutes away. On the deserted island where we live. (Really, it's deserted. Or, rather, it's in progress. But here, at least, all the many, many lanes are mostly empty.)
Baby steps, right?
"What?" I hear you asking. "Cars? What's wrong with cars?"
There's nothing wrong with cars. But there's a great deal wrong with drivers. I learned to drive in Canada. Smallish-town Canada, for that matter. I can drive in rain (boy, can I drive in rain) and snow and sleet. I can drive in fog. You throw any kind of weather at me, and I can drive in it.
Or, at least I could before we moved to New York. Because no one drives in New York City. Apart from a couple of jaunts when I was home to visit, I went five years without driving. I can tell you how to get to Point Z from Point A on the New York subway system, but I've lost my nerve when it comes to sitting behind a wheel.
Abu Dhabi is a driving city. Everyone drives. Gas is cheap, cars are plentiful, and absolutely nothing is walking distance from anything else. It's the exact opposite of New York.
So, here's the other problem: this little Canadian can drive in any kind of weather, but she learned to drive on two-lane roads. At most, the roads I drove would widen out to four lanes, two in each direction, where you only ever had to pay attention to what the driver in the next lane over was doing.
Abu Dhabi is a huge grid of superblocks bounded by vast, multi-lane highways. To go anywhere, you have to travel on these crazy streets of four to six lanes in EACH direction. U-turns aren't just accepted--they're normal. You need to make them all the time. Inside the superblocks are smaller streets, usually one-way, and usually crowded with people and cars.
Drivers. Are. Crazy. Maybe it's because they come from all over: Abu Dhabi is full of expatriates from the US and Canada and the UK and Australia and India. Everyone drives differently. Some people use their turning signals. Most people don't.
You know how, in Canada, you learn to leave a two-second gap between vehicles? For safety? Here? NO SUCH THING. Drivers squeeze into impossibly small spaces between cars. They pass on the shoulder (I have, on at least one occasion, seen people simply DRIVING on the shoulder. Yes. Treating it like another lane, when it clearly is not). They drive fast. They drive stupid.
And it is terrifying.
Still, I dutifully went and got my license. (And, wow, talk about efficient! I have never had an experience like it. I was in and out with a new United Arab Emirates driving license in less time than it took to drive to the office to start out with! And, hey, it's even a reasonably good picture.)
I have been out driving exactly twice in the two weeks since then. Both times to the grocery store. Ten minutes away. On the deserted island where we live. (Really, it's deserted. Or, rather, it's in progress. But here, at least, all the many, many lanes are mostly empty.)
Baby steps, right?
