ferrousland.com - daily news archives
Thursday, January 19, 2006
show no weakness - 07:17 PM
(filed under 'bahrain')
after my first driving experience in bahrain (can you believe that's almost two months ago already?) i'm fully into the swing of the style of driving here. in fact, excuse the french, but it's kind of fun driving like an arsehole. 
okay, that's not totally correct. people aren't being rude when they drive the way they drive around here. driving that way would be considered rude in australia where it's a little more of a relaxed atmosphere on the roads (although in sydney they're much pushier than many other places in australia), but here it's just normal. it's not rude, it's just the way it's done.
we've discovered the secret to driving successfully in bahrain, i.e. getting beeped as few times as possible, not being stuck for five minutes at intersections waiting for a gap. you must show no weakness. if you show the slightest sign of weakness, you'll lose the chance to get on the roundabout or you'll lose the gap to merge into traffic.
for instance, there's not reallly such a thing here as giving way to the vehicle already on the roundabout. you have to simply forge ahead onto the roundabout, show no sign of weakness by pausing ever so slightly, slowing down more than necessary, or even looking unsure of yourself as you watch the other vehicles, & the other vehicles about to enter the roundabout will see you're not going to stop, so they stop & let you through.
in fact, we've gotten into the swing of it so much that if shroom is with me while i'm driving & i miss a gap in traffic or some other car manages to take the gap in front of us, shroom will turn to me & say with mock derision, ".. & you call yourself a real arab!"
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