Scary driving.. beep beep crash crash

Well I’m getting to know my way around Jeddah a little bit more now, it’s designed in a grid system with obvious American influence. It’s impossible to walk anywhere and the only people you’ll see doing so are those too poor to be able to afford a car, Jeddah is pretty huge so you’d be hard pushed to get anywhere but the local shops even if you could find a pavement (sidewalk).

The poor unfortunates that have to walk everywhere (there is no public transport except taxis) often fall victim to road accidents, I have not seen any but have had reports of bodies seen laying by the roadside. Their common fate is not surprising to anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes driving around and witnessed the average level of driving care exhibited.

If there are any common road rules or laws in Jeddah then i’m hard pressed to identify them the roads which are usually about 4 lanes wide have no lane markings and individual cars wobble between lanes as they please; u-turns against 8 lanes of traffic are not uncommon, the whole experience feels like a go on the dodgems at a fair ground.

We had our first little scrape the other night when turning left at a junction, a car in the far right (4th) lane decided it too wanted to turn left and wanted to be in the lane we were in needless to say there was nowhere to go and the driver of the car gave up with his manouevre after hitting the side of our 4×4. However after a quick bout of name calling and horn blowing we were on our way again without even stopping to check damage, apparently any claim for insurance here is a long drawn out process involving the police (hmm sounds familiar) and usually ends in a 50/50 split anyway.

The disparity in wealth here is obvious in the cars as well as the buildings, it is not uncommon to see a very young looking Saudi lad driving a sports car or blinged out Hummer next to a huge Indian family crammed in a tiny old battered car.

Hanans Dad has asked me if i would like to drive, however i have to say i feel reluctant to at the moment I fear I might not get very far sticking to my familiar way of driving.