Driving is Insane in Saudi Arabia

Eight months in, and I got in my first car accident in Saudi Arabia. FINALLY. Gosh, I though it was never going to happen. I kept asking myself, "what is wrong with me? Am I that unattractive that no one in this entire country is going to violently smash their vehicle into mine?

I've mentioned it before, but I figure now is good time to devote an entry to driving in Saudi Arabia. It's insane. The infrastructure is screwy, the drivers think they're formula one hopefuls, gas is literally cheaper than water, and the cops are ambivalent. Small wonder it's often  harder to spot a vehicle that doesn't have obvious body damage than one that does.

The accident my roommate and I were in, as you can see, was relatively minor. Perhaps in describing it, I can give some insight into a typical driving experience here. Context: there are no stop signs, nor are their dividing lines painted on the road. So. We were just arriving home. My roommate, Erron was driving. He banked slightly right, before he turned left into the parking spot, so he could park straight. While he was banking right, a truck ran straight through the four-way, tried to pass us on the left, so he hit us as we were turning.

When the cop came to the scene, he was as relaxed as a sloth in a tree. While he listened to both Erron and the other driver tell their accounts, he didn't seem particularly interested in either.  In fact, he didn't even step out of his vechicle to take a proper look at the accident, let alone take pictures. All the while, cars were passing the accident on the left and the right, which didn't seem to bother the policeman at all. He seemingly arbitrary surmised that the it was twenty-five per cent Erron's fault and seventy-five percent the other driver's fault.

I hope this gets sorted out soon, so we can get another rental...but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed. 


As reckless as the drivers are here, it's a wonder that there aren't more accidents. Last night, I saw a kid in a smashed-up car blaze down the street toward Rabigh's busiest intersection, pull up obliquely in front of first cars in line waiting for the red to change, and then run the light. I wish this were atypical--but it's not. And dimes to dollars no one wrote down his license plate number or called the police.
 
The problem lies not only with poor driving habits, but also with the poor infrastructure. If there were a stop sign in place, maybe just maybe that guy would have at least slowed down and avoided hitting us. It should be tougher to get a license. But even if it were harder, this is Saudi Arabia, and if you have wasta (influence), or know someone with wasta, you can get around just about anything. Cops need to start giving more tickets--they clearly don't do this enough. I think part of the reason why, is that if they stop a Saudi, they will argue with them...and if they have wasta, they may even threaten them!

Proper infrastructure should be put it place. It would help...although it would still be dangerous. People here drive like absolute maniacs. Why? Maybe because it's the only fun thing you're allowed to do here. Especially for young men. Back home, kids would have other outlets. They could go to rock concerts, go out with girls, go see a movie or go compete in a sporting event. (You're allowed to do sports here, it's just too hot and there isn't much interest). But here there is nothing. So kids get in their cars, and they go "drifting", which means they drive so bloody fast that the tires are barely touching the road.

This means that people die. Every trimester one of the trainees is either seriously injured or dies in an auto accident. Every one of my trainees knows someone who has died in an auto accident. Last trimester, two of out instructors got into a serious auto accident because a Saudi was driving recklessly. The instructor who was driving was not wearing a seat belt, and he was thrown through the window. The other shattered his right leg, and had to crawl out of the burning wreckage. He came quite close to dying after contracting pneumonia as a result of third-rate medical treatment.  

Of course, the terrible road planning doesn't help. Sometimes you have to make some inconvenient detours in able to turn around and get to where you want to go. This results in people driving on the wrong side of the street. The traffic lights are terrible: they are often placed several feet before the intersection, so drivers can't see the lights turn, and often they just guess. Also. there isn't any paint on the road to speak of--rarely do you come across a four-way stop, there are few zebra crossings, and not often there aren't even lines in the middle of the road. So, people often act like the rules that those marking as are there to remind us of don't exist! People drive in the middle of the road, they go through four ways without stopping. God help you if you're a pedestrian walking across the street if there's a car coming.

So, yeah. The driving here is insane. If you've never been to these parts before, and decide to drive. Please exercise caution!

Culture Shock

Although I am getting to be something of a veteran  traveler, foreign cultures still surprise me on occasion. Sometimes they make me confused or amused. Sometimes they get me frustrated. But good or bad a bit of culture shock is the price that you pay for moving to a country like Saudi Arabia.

 

One of the most immediately obvious differences between Saudi culture and my own are people's driving habits. Saudis (and expats in KSA), tend to think they are the best drivers in the world. They are not. Drivers here speed. If the sign says seventy, don't be surprised if you see someone driving one hundred forty or over. In big cities like Riyadh, there are cameras that will register your license and automatically send you a speeding ticket. Unfortunately, here in Rabigh, on the fringes of civilization, no such futuristic technology is employed.  Besides the excessive speeding, motorists tend to pay little or no attention to pedestrians--a disconcerting reality in a city without any sidewalks. I was nearly run over a couple of weeks ago by a man in an SUV, going to quickly around a corner, into the wrong lane of traffic. The worst part: I believe he saw me and just expected me to jump out of the way.

My home country is largely atheist, whereas KSA is completely Muslim. As I am beginning to see ever the more clearly, Saudi culture is so infused with Islam that is impossible to imagine what it might be like without Islam. Wahhabism is the style of Islam practiced in KSA. It is very strict. Muslims are expected to pray five times a day. Dating is not allowed. Drinking and taking drugs are not allowed; and women must be covered when out in public. When all of these factors combine, they culminate a totally different social experience.

People don't go out to socialize the way we do in the west. I don't know about elsewhere in KSA, but in Rabigh, there are no cafes (although well paid expats like myself will hang out in hotels). There are no cinemas anywhere in Saudi Arabia, and there are obviously no bars. There are many specialty stores, and there are restaurants, so most of socialization in city centers tends to focus around shopping and eating. There are a few parks here and there, and the beach is very popular. The common social experience here seems to be more of a long, protracted event, relaxing on the beach, camping, with close friends or family, rather than going downtown for a night out with friends.


One of the most difficult things for me to adjust to thus far has been dealing with the shop closures during the four o' clock prayer (asr), the six-thirty prayer (maghrib) and the eight 'o clock prayer (isha). Work finishes at three-forty, and by the time I get downtown it's four. Most of the banks close at four thirty or four forty-five, but the prayer lasts until four-thirty, so the few banks that are left open, attract massive queues. So, there is a window between four-thrity and six thirty, when I can eat or do shopping, and after that, there is a window between six forty-five and eight. After maghrib, shops stay open quite late, but that's little help when you have to get up at six in the morning. Despite the insistence of one of my colleagues, shops have to close during prayer time, or they will get a visit from the police.

Saudis pray hard, but do they work hard? The consensus seems to be resounding "no". KSA is a welfare state and most Saudis seem to do quite well, despite the fact that it's (relatively) rare to actually see a Saudi working. So who runs the shops, sweeps the sidewalks, and builds the buildings? A massive contingent of foreign workers from places like the Philippines, India and Bangladesh. Engineers and skilled tradesmen come in from places like Japan, Korea, Spain and Germany; and educators come from all over. From what I've noticed, Saudis predominantly occupy administrative positions...although its also common to see them working as freelance taxi drivers in Rabigh, at least. 

Because the ratio of foreign workers to native Saudis is so high, the government has implemented legislation requiring employers to have a baseline of  Saudis on the payroll. I've heard stories that some companies will put a Saudi on the payroll, expect no work from him, and just allow him to come by every month and pick up his cheque. I'm a little skeptical, but if I take my students as a clue, I can see it happening. My students (trainees), get hired by companies, then are sent to school to learn English and technical skills to prepare them for their future positions. Their room and board is paid for, and they are given a monthly stipend. Some of them are hard-working, keen to learn, honest and intelligent. The majority, however, possess only one or two of  those qualities. They are for the most part smart guys, but laziness is the rule instead of the exception. This, I'm told, is the legacy of a lack-luster education system. Contrary to my own education, the one Saudis get doesn't seem to teach them about environmental stewardship, either.

Having come directly from Vancouver, where there is a garbage can on every block, recycling is commonplace, and litter is met with contempt, I'm astounded at the low quality of waste management here. If you buy even a bottle of water at the store, they will put it in a bag, which you are expected just to throw on the ground, along with the bottle, when your are done with that. Foreign workers clean the streets and haul the waste off to some central location, but outside the city the garbage never gets cleaned up. People treat county like one big garbage dump. Perhaps it is needless to say, there is no recycling program in Rabigh.Unlike some of my colleagues, I do see a lot of beauty in the environment here--but too often, that beauty gets glossed over, by garbage.

So, there are the challenges, but I don't want to get too caught up in the bad. It's not my purpose to dwell on the negative, only to point out some of the differences because it's interesting. And actually, there are a lot of positives here as well, which I will write about in a future post.

Sand Bogging

Yesterday, I had the awesome opportunity to experience some genuine Saudi culture with some genuine Saudis.

Earlier in the week, I was looking around, trying to find a bank that would exchange some Canadian cash into riyals. Not yet having acquired my residency card (iqama), I wasn't able to open a bank account and exchange my money. I did, however meet a friendly Saudi who worked at one of the banks, and who had spent some time in Canada. After chatting for a while, he offered to take me into the Jebel mountains on the weekend, which I accepted, with only a little hesitation.

So, when the weekend came, I gave my friend a call, and half an hour later he pulled up in a Lexus SUV. I got in and we zoomed out of town towards a small town in the direction of Yanbu. It took about half an hour to get there--but keep in mind that this is half an hour of Saudi driving, so it might have taken me forty-five minutes. This was the first time I had been outside of Rabigh since arriving three weeks ago, so I was very happy to get out.

My Saudi friend's home was a small village, of modest looking, single-story houses. My friend told be that its inhabitants were mostly Bedouins. There, we dropped the Lexus and got into my friend's pick-up truck, and headed farther north. After some time, we slowed down, and turned east off the road, at a place which seemed to me totally lacking in distinction from any other place a kilometer up or down  the road. By my Saudi compatriot, told me he came out this way every weekend, and in fact, only a few generations ago, his family had lived out in the mountains, where we were headed. After a few hundred meters, we stopped the truck to let air out of the tires because with the tires full, the truck would get stuck in the sand.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say, but I did have some small worry that I wasbeing lulled out into the desert on false pretenses only to be chopped up with scimitars for the crime of being a white devil and infidel. Then again, I was going quite far out into the wilderness with someone I had had only just met. Perhaps it's only natural to be a little bit on edge in those circumstances, regardless of what country you are in!

As we got closer the mountains, I got to enjoy a range of ecological features. The ground changed from earthy to rock to sandy and back again. Here there were grasses and shrubs, there there were trees, and in another place there was no vegetation to speak of. As we got higher up, the sand eroded and gave way to pile of huge rocks. There was one gigantic granite boulder that that had been cleanly split in half. According to my friend, it had been struck by lighting, a few years before. We drove around and took pictures for a while, and eventually came back to the main camping grounds.

At the main area, I met some of my host's friends and relatives.  Instead of chopping me into pieces, they offered me coffee. A few of them spoke English nearly as well as me. We had polite conversation, while their children ran around playing. Not far off, you could see vehicles climbing a giant sand-dude and after I while we decided to go to the top. I got a ride on a ATV, and some other when in an SUV.

From the top, there was a landing area and on either side, there were two huge bowls, in which several people were driving their pickups, SUVs and ATVs, racing up the sides and drifting along the lips. It was impressive. It made me think of my home town of Grand Forks, and people riding their snowmobiles in the winter time.

After a while we went down, and had tea and more conversation. After that I got another ATV, ride and before I knew it, the sun was setting and it was time to go. It had an excellent time thank to my excellent hosts. Perhaps saying so sounds a bit contrite, but this was an experience that reminded me that the differences between people from different cultures are for the most part superficial, and that where it counts, human beings are the same, wherever you go.