Saturday, November 06, 2004
Live and let live
Do you say the shahada everytime a Saudi cuts you up on the highway? Do you wana poke the eyeballs out of every Saudi who solicits you at the traffic lights? The invasion of an alien species every Thursday night is increasingly endangering normal Bahrainis.Bahrainis, especially women are increasingly fearful of driving on the weekends especially at night. And I agree, its probably safer to stay at home. I get a headache from my own family when I go out Thursday night telling me to take extra care. The proliferation of Saudi drunk drivers (they're bad enough when they are sober) has dramatically increased the risk of driving anywhere downtown but especially on the highway going to the Causeway – that along with the risk of a crashing into a wandering camel. The latter proving more fateful 99% of time. In fact, it is a miracle for anyone to survive a Camal crash. But miracles do happen, one of my friends did survive alhamdullila, although instead of being given compensation and medical cover, she was ordered to pay a few thousand BD to the owner of the dead camal (some Sheikh)!!! I couldn’t believe that one when I heard it.
Anyway, a car crash a couple of nights ago on the Causeway must have been one of the worst crashes I’ve ever seen in Bahrain. Some pictures here [1] [2]. Some dumb-arse Saudi trying to overtake , crossing the barrier hit an oncoming car killing his Bahraini wife, the driver of the oncoming car and the 2 Bahraini women a 14 year old girl who were with him who toppled over the bridge into the sea. He survived with a few broken bones!!!
![[1]](http://img115.exs.cx/img115/343/DSC_2795.jpg){kind=link}
![[2]](http://img131.exs.cx/img131/1928/DSC_3013.jpg){kind=link}
Who hasn’t been cut up by some crackbrained Saudi driving at 180kph who loop in and out of lanes like their in a bumper car in the local fairground? And if your unlucky enough to drive up next to one at a traffic light seeing their pea-brained pathetic solicitations. The local economy needs their money, but Bahrainis are getting sick of being Saudi’s backdoor whorehouse and piss parlour on the weekend. But if we must be exposed to their danger like this, at least they should be subject to traffic penalties (for parking and passing red lights), and should be specifically targeted for routine breath tests for alcohol and if guilty banned from ever coming to Bahrain again.
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LOL. Your humor is great, you made me laugh, all the while, this is all SO true. Unfortunately. I can't ever remember a time I went out on a Thursday and had random bits of papers with phone numbers chucked at my car window when stuck in traffic. One time a Saudi crashed into the back of our car and begged us not to call the police - he ended up giving us 400BD to cover the damage (which only cost about 80BD) and to convince us not to call traffic police lol. Its sad how these guys treat Ba7 and its people with little respect. Its just a playground to them :(
Sarah.
those pics are horrific!... but the worse part is that the person who caused the entire tragedy.. just walked away with a few broken bones leaving behind him a broken home & a disastrous ending......
i'm surprised to learn from your post that such people aren't fined or event put thru the breathalizer tests.... whats more is they're still allowed to drive .... fine allow then to return to Bahrain as a final resort but don't allow them to drive on bahrain's roads....
what annoys me the most is when i drive to uni, (i take the hamala - budaiya highway to get to my campus in Saar) i get honked from behind by cars with saudi-marked registration plates for driving at 100kmph on a single traffic street..... (and the limit is 100 kmph)... so are they expecting me to go faster and break the speed limit or do they expect me to driver over other cars in front of me or probably run over the pedestrians on the sidewalks (- not that there are many....)...
i'm not sayin' that all ppl with saudi car license plates are behave like this.. but u do get those annoying few that make driving hell on Bahrain's roads....;)
It's so common to read in the GDN about an accident caused by a drunk and speeding Saudi. You know how I feel about this if you read my similar post from a few months back.
But you know, it's not only you ladies that get harassed by those guys. When I was about 14 I (foolishly) hitched a ride in to town with a Saudi driver, and he tried to molest me on the way! (he put his hand on my thigh and asked me "you have big one or small one?") I totally flipped when he did this and was luckily able to get out of the car without any harm being done. But I shudder to think what could have happened if he weren't driving on such a public road at the time. And I shudder even more when I think about all the other unsuspecting kids he (and others) may have successfully lured. Obviously, this didn't leave me with the best impression of Saudis. When will our govt wake up and do something?
well... wasn't it just yesterday that the GDN reported on how a group of 5 Bahraini friends were returning from saudi and were killed by a speeding saudi driver who smashed into them after (jumpin the central reservation) loosin' control of his jeep....
Strav, yeah the accident I was talking about is the same one in the GDN.
Chan'ad, im sorry to hear that you were sexually abused, I just hope the experience didnt leave any emotional scars. 'Batification' is an understandable phenomenon inflicting our alien neighbours.
The best solution is to relocate Exhibition Road to somewhere off mainland Bahrain. An offshore brothel maybe??
An offshore brothel sounds like a good idea, and while your at it build a casino or two as well in the same spot. Might as well fleece them (Saudis) for all they're worth!!!
All im saying, since this industry exists by default I prefer it if it doesnt socially, morally, and physically danger us by controlling it more stringently. However, I always keeping in mind, the Prophets hadeeth:
" لعن الله في الخمرة عشرة شاربها وساقيها ومستقيها وحاملها والمحمولة اليه وبائعها ومشتريها وآكل ثمنها... "
I am serious. Build a brothel and a casino offshore and BINGO 90% of the problems will be solved. A little slip road off the causeway just before one reaches the mainland and the drunk Saudi problem will be greatly reduced. The EXTRA BD raised will do lots of good for your rose colored glasses causes.
funny that you ppl do mention about havin' an offshore pimp house with da casinos and extra add-ons... because off the record this same discussion was talked about in a safety meeting in one of our biggest and oldest oil companies in Bahrain.
This meeting was chaired by the then chairman of the company .. say about 3 yrs ago.... and it was concerned with increasing the number of accident-free manpower hours..... the trouble was that some bright non-bahraini car would keep smashing into the piplines in riffa or the ones along the highways..... the committee looked at the causes and the preventive measure that could be taken...
...........and it was found that about 70% of the pipline-related accidents were caused by saudi-registered vehicles & 20% by omani registered cars....So... someone with the Personal Department suggested to the head of the safety department that hotels, nightclubs & everything that surrounds the pimp industry have its branches within the mentioned countries..... the only way to stopping the pollution and decreasing such accidents......
anywayz... i dunno' how they managed to save their piplines since... probably must have given the offenders a stake in the employee shares/ownership incentive programme at the now merged company..... :D
It would be helpful if we had some statistics and then judged the required policies based on the size of the problem.
Number of car accidents per year
Number of fatalities
Cause of accidents
Number of alcohol-related incidents
Nationality of drivers
Frequency of accidents according to day of the week
Does anyone know of any such study? or if such statistics are available?
I luv yo observations euro bahraini :-D, frankly these are stats from 3 yrs ago.... and they are the 'real' stats 'cos i remeber havin' to do a term paper on the number of alcohol-related accidents in a chosen country in the Middle East versus Canada..... & i do so clearly remember been given the mentioned figures... as for accident-free manpower hours....you've given us a great perspective to ponder on, however, lets look at it this way: you have mechanical engineers (employees) working a shift on tryin to fix up an already damaged pipline and then you suddenly feel blinded by the lights of an oncoming car and then in an attemp to avoid being jammed to the pipes yo trip while you're runnin' away.....
end line is that you got another car thats crashes into the pipline, scope of damage at the time is unknown and you still got an employee with minor injuries.... i leave you to figure out the rest with regards to accident-free man hours.....
Have a nice day! :)
Shall I argue .. or shall I only feel overwhelmed !
As a Saudi who gets and truly enjoys his regular visits to Bahrain, I sympathize with every negative said about Saudi drivers. I suffer in Saudi Arabia while driving and for sure during my visits to Bahrain, the most annoying drivers are of my same nationality.
Yet, I just don't like the very negative tone of the comments.. as well as the generalization. The comment about never seeing any Saudi car close to a museum or a cultural event in Bahrain IS NOT TRUE!. I am saying that because I'm a Saudi who attended different Bahraini cultural events and working with one of the Bahraini NGOs... and I will continuo doing so!.
I know that there is nothing I can say as an apology for the wrong deeds of many Saudis... which I am not responsible for. Each person is responsible about himself and such generalization I read through the comments was disturbing.
hi Saudi,
Of course we are making generalisations, we're making brush-stroke comments about general phenomenon...and out of 17 million Saudis, were lucky that one exception has decided to voice his opinion on this blog today :) Sorry to make you feel defensive...and dont feel the need to apologise for the mistake of others.
Its a fact that though saudis some of them are bad drivers they are the rulers of the arab world.