Dubai
I think it is important to address a critical issue that I come across quite often on the roads in the UAE. I am referring to the manner in which drivers are transporting products and animals due to the lack of of enforcement of regulations.
I live and work in between Abu Dhabi and Dubai and on occasion tend to carpool, allowing me the opportunity to document some of the appalling ways in which some drivers and businesses are allowed to secure their products.
Without fail, every time I have made this trip, I have seen multiple incidents of loosely bound metal rods, glass, stacks of boxes and a scaffold on one occasion, in an open bed small truck. I have also seen transport vehicles without doors in the back, making it extremely likely that an object may fly out of the vehicle and cause damage or injury to other drivers’ vehicles or even possibly bodily harm. We have spotted rods so long they stick out of the back of the truck, unsecured and untethered. Objects stacked high in undersized trucks with only one flimsy rope wrapped around the bundle. Additionally, I have also come across truck drivers pulling over to retrieve items that have flown out of their trucks.
Worst of all, I have seen animals packed in trucks, with little room to move, exposed to the summer heat and sun being transported on the highways. These animals should not be exposed to such extreme weather conditions in slow moving trucks, without access to a cooling system or cold drinking water.
A few years ago, an open bed truck driving ahead of my brother’s vehicle hit a bump in the road, which resulted in a metal piece flying out of the back of the truck bed and on to the road, hitting the bottom of my brother’s vehicle and damaging it.
“It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to switch lanes,” Adnan Al Amiri, a legal counsel based in Dubai, said. “It flew out of the open truck bed and onto the road right in front of me, I heard it hit the bottom of my car.”
Because the driver continued to drive off, my brother was notified by the Dubai Police that he would have to bear the cost of fixing the vehicle, until the driver returned of his own volition to claim responsibility.
“Now, I advise all my friends and loved ones never to drive behind trucks carrying a load because of the potential dangers.” he added.
I have had a friend report that he has had to swerve on a bridge to avoid hitting a mattress sitting on the road.
“The mattress was sitting in the middle of the bridge, clearly having had fallen there from a transport vehicle. Luckily, I swerved into the next lane just in time to avoid having an accident,” Imad Farajullah, a sales manager living in Abu Dhabi, stated.
All this is quite disturbing and I hope that the regulatory bodies can start educating the public on the correct transportation procedures to reduce risk of falling objects, accidents, and the torment of animals under the scorching sun.
I hope that specific regulations are put in place that specify the minimum truck size for transportation, regulations on the height of the loads the trucks are carrying, and special trucks with air conditioning for animal transport.
— The reader is a business development manager based in Dubai.
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FACTBOX:
According to a list of federal traffic offences in the UAE issued by the Ministry of Interior, if the loads of the trucks are not covered, the driver could be fined Dh3000. Load leakage or spilling from the heavy vehicles will result in a fine of Dh3000. Loading the heavy vehicles in a way that endangers others or damages the roads will result in a fine of Dh2000 and six black points.
