Dubai
The Satwa roundabout is one of the busiest ones in Dubai. Many vehicles use this junction to go to areas such as Jumeirah, Bur Dubai, Al Jafiliya or the Satwa bus station. There are thousands of people living in this area with their families.
Often, we have seen that vehicles coming from the Second December Street (formerly Al Diyafa Street), Al Jafiliya or the World Trade Centre do not use their option to take a free right turn through the service lane. They use the main road to take a right turn and at the same time, pedestrians have the green signal to cross the roads. So what happens is that the vehicles approach the pedestrians at the same time as when they are crossing the roads.
Most of the motorists can’t see the signboards placed there to convey, “No right turn”.
A few days ago, I witnessed a car that was about to hit a family with an infant in a stroller. The driver stopped the car after applying the brakes suddenly and then blamed the family for crossing the road. But, in fact, the pedestrian family was right as they were crossing using the pedestrian crossing while the signal for pedestrians was green. The motorist might have thought that the signal for vehicles was also green, but it is not allowed for them to take a right at this spot, which the driver probably didn’t know, as he didn’t notice the signboard.
In Dubai, we have seen that the authorities have placed many cameras to catch these violators. But on this busy roundabout, there are no cameras. We, the residents of Satwa area, raise this issue so the authorities can take appropriate steps to create some solutions.
The reader is a packaging technologist based in Dubai.
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