Drive Me Crazy

I hope you don't mind if I take a moment out of the current seasonally themed blogathon to air one of my major current grievances; pardon, too, any language not usually seen in these genteel premises.

In short, driving in Our Fair Sultanate is going to hell in a handbasket, and if something isn't done about the absolute fuckwits who make up what seems to be an ever-increasing proportion of local drivers, the already insane national traffic-fatality statistics (I've heard estimates that they are up to forty times most developed countries) are going to continue to skyrocket.

When we arrived here some years ago, aside from a plague of idiotic young men driving ridiculous cars bought for them with daddy's money, it was actually possible to get around from place to place without risking, at best, a heart attack, or, at worst, a grisly, gory death. No more. A simple run to the supermarket can allow you to witness a veritable catalogue of motorized assholery - not just your garden variety speeding, unexpected U-turns, or tailgating (although all of those are commonplace). Oh, no - I'm talking things like people deciding to pass into oncoming traffic just to prove, apparently, that theirs is bigger than yours; or family cars, loaded down with a dozen small children milling about in the backseat, roaring along at top speed on the shoulder of a packed highway; or death-wish driven shitheads inching into traffic to execute what turns into a fish-tailing left turn with brakes and horns squealing as a dozen other drivers have to slam on the brakes, and...

I mean, what gives? This is a placid, almost chokingly polite place, one in which voices are rarely raised, tidiness reigns supreme, and most people - local nationals and expatriates alike - seem to have bought into the kind of public demeanor that can make it feel like living in Stepfordistan. But put these very same people behind the wheel, and they turn into rejects from The Wacky Races, only without the cartoonish immortality.

When it reached the point that the Big Man himself, His Majesty, had to give a sharp scolding to the general public earlier this year, I thought things might improve. That was followed by the putting up of large and prominently placed billboards, with his smiling face accompanied by boldfaced declarations of the people's obedience to his wise advice. I'd like to meet those people, 'cause they're sure not on the roads.