Maniacs on the Road

Published December 22, 2009 - Muscat Daily

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A colleague of mine bought the car of his dreams a few weeks ago, and I saw him driving down the highway without his seatbelt on. I was horrified so I asked him the next day at work what the heck he thought he was doing speeding around town without wearing it? His answer was 'I spent 25,000 Rials on this car. You want me to drive around Salalah looking like a 2-year-old strapped to a child's car seat?' Yes, those were his exact words.

Speaking of car seats for kids, Salalah has yet to discover the benefits of using them. I cannot speak for other parts of Oman because I haven't left Salalah for a while, but here you will often see young children on the driver's lap or hanging out of the window or standing on the seats in a speeding car on a major highway. Parents seem to think their children are protected by some magic voodoo.
 

Is it just me or do others agree that a large percentage of drivers in Oman seem to have acquired their driver's licenses out of a Cheerios box? Whenever I'm on the road, I'm always on the lookout for old men from the mountains in ancient pickup trucks who think the highways are a free-for-all and who seem to exist in a parallel traffic universe, or the young men in expensive sports cars who overtake any vehicle in front of them that isn't going at 120 km/hr on a highway with a speed limit of 100 km/hr. What about the underage boys secretly driving their fathers' land cruisers who are too cool to indicate when switching lanes?
 

Why can't drivers judge distances and the speed of oncoming cars when they pull out? Why would you even consider overtaking on the left of a vehicle that is turning left? Need I mention the terrible habit of men who proceed to put their turbans on while driving during morning rush hour? They seem to control the steering wheel using their knees (while driving at 100 km/hr on the highway).
 

Last but not least, what in the world makes people in this country addicted to using their mobile phones while driving? I know that people all over the world do this but people in my town seem to wait until they get into the car to start making important phone calls. It's completely insane. They're not only endangering their own lives, but others' lives as well. The obvious complete absence of a sense of responsibility is extraordinary.
 

I was shocked to read the latest road accident statistics for the first ten months of this year. Almost 800 lives lost on the road and almost 8,000 injured in 5,895 accidents. Why did all those people have to die? Is it so difficult to drive carefully? We all know that using the phone while driving, speeding, being distracted, etc, is dangerous, but must we really wait until we are in a vehicle collision to fully comprehend what it all means?
 

I'm pleased with the fact that police officers seem to be spending more time on the road looking for offenders. Several people I know have been given a ticket during the past few weeks for even holding their phone in a small alleyway or for not wearing their seatbelts. I've also recently come to notice the new huge signs around town with messages practically begging people to be more careful. Kudos to the ROP for being more strict, and a salute to His Majesty for appealing to citizens to show restraint on the roads during his Meet-The-People Royal Tour last month.
 

I hope Oman introduces a new driving school program where not only are they required to complete at least 60 hours of training, but where new drivers are forced to watch lifelike videos on the results of texting while driving and which show in detail what actually goes on in a car during a collision. There are some really good and rather graphic videos available on YouTube and other sites. Please make an effort to drive carefully and avoid taking chances on the road. Don't wait for a tragedy to teach you the value of life.