One of the biggest nuisance factors on UAE roads is the practice of rubbernecking. In other words, the compulsive, and reprehensible, need to watch the scene of an accident, while driving past it at a slow speed. In building the traffic jam that ensues, we are all eager architects. In the first three months of this year alone, Dubai Traffic Police issued 60,944 traffic fines, of which rubbernecking fines formed a small percentage. Dubai Police’s ongoing awareness campaign to combat rubbernecking — ‘Avoid Crowding — Give Way’ therefore deserves to be taken seriously. Each one of us needs to realise that this is a problem the solution to which is entirely in our hands.
By persisting with this behaviour and discarding common sense, we are making the work of authorities more difficult. Surely, one need not be told that slowing down inappropriately to gape at an accident site is improper road etiquette. The sore point about this problem is that the very people who cuss and complain of others’ rubbernecking end up doing the same when they themselves level up with the accident site. It is time we all understood our collective responsibility and delivered on it.