It appears that the gentlemen over in the UAE have finally decided to start actively enforcing road fines on foreign-registered vehicles visiting their emirates. An email has been doing the rounds on the expat circuit for some time now, so it may be old news to some of you.
Some of the pictures in the email are clearly dated, I mean, just look at the cars in the pictures.
In fact, it may be worth wondering about where exactly these pictures were taken - any evidence that they were even taken in the UAE?!Anyway, the next two pictures in the email did grab my attention:
It appears that the boy's in Dubai have figured out that they can turn a tidy profit catching people speeding in residential area's - and about time too! Now here's the key facts rumoured in the email:
1. The speed limit in residential area's (eg where all those villas are) is 40 KM/h.
2. Don't drive down the hard-shoulder on any high-ways - harsh penalties will be levied if you're caught.
3. Unless otherwise noted, speed camera's have been set to 10 KM/h over the posted limit.
4. The Jumeirah road is apparently pegged at 80, and the camera's are set at 81 KM/h.
5. A first offence nets a fine of Dhs 1,500, a second offence lands you in jail for 3 days.
Now it's most probably nonsense that has been emailed around, but there's usually some elements of truth to these rumours.
Rather amusingly, James from Oman Oman Oman recently went to renew his registration on his car, and was alarmed to have been informed that he had a fine levied on him from Dubai, and he had to pay it before he could renew his registration. Interested, he looked at the apparent speed he was fined for, and was rather shocked to see that the Dubai police reckoned he was going 3225 KM/h. And rather than handing him a medal for breaking the land-speed record, the ROP guy simply said, "you must pay the fine - RO 63". The fact that there was clearly an error on the ticket and that it's just simply not possible to get any car to go even remotely as fast as that, or that anyone driving that fast should be put in jail, that was just conveniently ignored by the ROP officer manning the desk.
It appears that there is no method to question these UAE-levied tickets, and that you must pay them in order to renew your registration. It would seem that they have us all over a barrel - and surely some sort of QA/QC process must be in place? I mean, come on, 3225 KM/h and that doesn't even raise the slightest of questions that perhaps, maybe, the recorded speed was wrong? Just maybe?
Have you been fined for speeding in Dubai lately? How about driving through SALIK gates without a valid account?
le fin.
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