Oman tourist visa price hiked from RO 6 to RO 20

Well it had to happen, and congratulations to Muscat Daily for covering it (coincidentally, when are they ever going to get around to making a website?) on their front page today.

Tourist Visit Visa's have been hiked from RO 6 to RO 20. A pretty sharp increase in the visa charge, but in line with the charges being levied by the UAE. Of course those carrying passports on the magic list don't have to pay the visa charges in the UAE, but will now have to pay RO 20 instead of previously RO 6 when coming to Oman now.

It'd be interesting to see the revenues generated from the visa fee. What do you lot think about the increase in fees?

le fin.

Driving in the UAE

If you fancy a quick dash to Dubai Do Buy, then this news may be of some use to you.

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.

Horny taxi drivers.

The great thing for me about Ramadhan is my working hours - they're reduced. The bad thing is my workload, it increases. Which will undoubtedly have an impact on the blog, and hey it's a hobby so it's going to play second fiddle to work, as always, so advance-apologies if the blogs slow the next few weeks.

A few observations today though:

1/ Traffic accidents. Here we are, on Day #3 of Ramadhan, and I've already seen 2 accidents, one fender-bender and one nasty-looking T-bone at a junction. Both were in the afternoon around 3pm. Keep your eyes peeled.

2/ Horny taxi drivers. In conversation with a friend of mine, she told me the adventure she had on Thursday night. After working late, and taking a taxi back to her house around 10pm. This cabbie apparently took a liking to her and placed his hand on her upper thigh - and would'nt remove his hand! So another case of the horny taxi man groping their female fares. This story, however gets worse - the woman opened the door and jumped out of the car while it was still moving as her fear was that great of this obvious sexual offender - thankfully another car was coming and the taxi slowed down to a near stop allowing her to jump out. Quite rightly, she called the police and reported the taxi driver, and gave the plate number, and this is the most alarming part of the story. Are you ready? The ROP sent a female officer to see the woman (who had made her own way to a police station) who advised her to withdraw her complaint against this man because he was the sole earner for his family. What?! With that logic applied, it's a miracle rapes are not more common here, or maybe they are? Have you experienced wondering hands from a taxi driver, or someone else? I'm just blown away that the ROP asked someone to withdraw a complaint on a taxi driver for sexual mis-conduct - in Ramadhan. It's just staggering.
le fin.

The weekend. And drama at Love Lane.

I took a day off from blogging yesterday, not a lot to talk about really.

Today's hot news was the attempted suicide by some guy at Love Lane. The ROP managed to rescue the guy (who really didn't want rescuing) in front of a packed crowd of rubber-neckers at the Love Lane.
Very exciting, except the man perhaps did not want to actually commit suicide, but fancied a swim (conveniently forgetting that he could not swim). The guy came with someone else who decided to call the police to get this guy out of the water after failing to get the guy to come out on his own.

The ROP responded with a 2 man unit in record time (I'm told 2 minutes but I'm not sure I actually believe that). One of the officers pulled a David Hasslehoff and ran straight in after the guy, while the other one took on the role of Pamela Anderson and went looking for a Scarab speedboat. Unable to find a boat fast enough to sufficiently blow his hair, he opted for the next best thing, a Jet Ski.

And in a very short amount of time the ROP officers managed to drag the non-swimming-swimmer back onto the beach. It's not clear what happened to the guy after that, but one would presume he's being handled by the ROP. Credit to @GazelleR from Twitter for the story.

Not a bad little story to tell whilst out socialising tonight or tomorrow!

Now, if you are a fan of a good fry-up, the Musandam brunch at the Intercon is worth a shot. A touch steep at RO 15.200 (including taxes) but a serious option if you fancy a bit of pampering. This week, there is a Scottish themed corner with the usual hangover cures, haggis, stovies, and basically lots of really unhealthy Scottish food to start your lazy friday.

Also for the hardcore just ask the Scottish chef after 2pm to sample some of his homemade rusty nail. For reservations call t'intercon on 24680000.

Have a great weekend everyone!

le fin.

ROP crack down on Road Safety "turns" blind eye to Retail concerns

What a nice weekend that turned out to be?!

I even went for a drive in Bertha down to Yiti. The old road is such a nice drive I find. Normally, on my frequent trips to Ruwi, I take Qurum heights road, as opposed to the other road via Hatat House. Seeing as I was heading for Hamriyah on the weekend, I figured I'd go via Wattayah. The road works are progressing at the Qurum wadi crossing, and now it looks like the final part of the bridge is being completed and hopefully the road works will be finished soon.

Imagine my shock when I saw the following sign (picture taken by a passenger!)



Click on the photo to make it bigger so you can really see what the sign is suggesting. Yes, that's right, some bright spark thought that it genuinely would be a good idea to have shoppers headed for The Sultan Centre (and the Al-Harthy Complex) to do a U-Turn on what is possibly the busiest stretch of highway in the country. That is staggeringly stupid. I wonder if ROP approval had to be given for this sign? Or whether ROP approval was even sought?

Now as I said, I do not regularly drive this route so have not much of an idea when this new route was made (and the subsequent kamikaze sign) but what on earth is going on there? Someone should take that sign down before a serious accident occurs.

le fin.

It's official: Saturday is a holiday!

Don't you just love long weekends? I know I do!

I think I'll seriously consider another trip up to do buy, or perhaps carry out some aggressive eye-lid inspections, who knows.

Tonight see's match 61 of the FIFA World Cup, a show down between Uruguay and The Netherlands.
Coverage is on Jazeera Sports (+10 and HD), and it kicks off at 10:30pm tonight. I hope the Dutchies win!

In local news, the ROP are cracking down on drivers again with a plan for manditory 48 hours in the slammer for the following offences (if caught): Running red lights, speeding, driving on the shoulder, driving without drivers license and not indicating.

The ROP have also been asking women to cover up more in the last few weeks too. Presumably as it's getting hotter, and women are wearing less, they're being asked to be more modest.

Thats all for today.

le fin.

Dubai Do Buy, and Bertha the 4x4

I recently took a trip up to Dubai, and wanted to share my experiences with you all.

Firstly, because Ikea is having a sale, I decided to drive up in my 4x4. Now to people that know me, and know the 4x4 in question, the first words out of their mouths upon hearing this news was, "Are you sure Bertha is going to make it"? Cheeky buggers.

Four and a half hours after setting off on Thursday, we arrived at our destination, the hotels at Festival City. Now Bertha is not a particularly pretty 4x4, I like to refer to her as mature. So pulling up to the concierge of a 5* hotel in Bertha was a touch embarrassing, but it's over and done with now! To further entertain you all, when waiting for the valet to return Bertha to me on Friday, after a longer than expected wait, Bertha finally emerged from where-ever it was that they had stashed her. The driver got out of the truck and said to me rather angrily "too much problems sir". Is there no end to the insults that dear old Bertha has to endure?

First piece of local news: Some clever spark at the Ministry of Roads & Transportation has clued-in to the fact that having turning lanes on high-ways where people drive at speeds over 120 KM/h is probably not the best way to go about things. I report with great pleasure that almost all (but not all) of the turning lanes that you encounter on the highway to the Hatta border are now, or currently, being closed off with guard rails.

This is excellent news for drivers going up and down the highway. I'm not sure how happy I would be if I lived in one of the towns or villages that straddles the highway with no round about to cross the highway (somewhat) safely. I guess that means that some fly-overs are in the pipe works then.

Back to Dubai. As I wrote above, I was visiting Dubai for a spot of Ikea shopping. The sale this year is particularly good, and as the Undercover Dragon would put it, I managed to secure a 4x4 load of treasures (albeit flat packed) for my return.

At the border leaving Oman, and entering into the UAE, I was expecting the ROP officer to ask me for my Orange insurance booklet, but that never happened. I guess that initiative fizzled out already then. The UAE security check point on both Oman borders at Abu Badi / Ar Rawdah is now a permanent thing, with little huts for the guards to stand in. The road works that were under way in Madam (and Sohar for that matter) are now complete. There also appears to be a new speed camera (or something) on the Hwy 44 between Madam and Lahbab. It's an Omani style, in the sense that it captures the rear of your vehicle, but perhaps it's not operational. I drove past it at 120 KM/h thinking that was the limit, only to find out subsequently that the limit was in fact 100 KM/h. Just a warning to anyone planing on making the drive. The camera's are on that stretch of road that goes through the desert dunes.

And that's it for today. Tomorrow, hopefully, something amusing for you all.

le fin.

News roundup.

Well it's been a pretty busy few days, with lots of things going on both in the office and on the personal front. I have to say though that the weather lately has been great :)

So, yesterday, finally, MC3 (that's the Passenger Terminal Building at Muscat International Airport) was tendered. J&P came in the lowest price, with CCC following as second lowest. I guess the technical evaluation will now have started and assuming that J&P tick all the boxes that need to be ticked, they will be awarded the job, they're certainly a very competent Contractor. If you're thinking about a move to a new place in Azaiba or al Hail, do it now because I suspect that with the influx of people working on MC3, demand for housing in these areas is going to increase. Well done to The Sultan Center for seeing a market, and opening a supermarket right in Azaiba. I'm sure their money-printing press is working over-time at the moment.

It also has not really been publicised, but I'm blogging it anyway, Galfar some how managed to get awarded the Ras Al Hadd Airport Contract. I'm literally blown away, how can a Contractor who has consistently failed to meet a single deadline on any of their infrastructure projects continue to be awarded work? Incredible, really.

So these ROP fines... officially it's still not true, unofficially, its pretty obvious something big is going on: New ROP cars, new cameras, red-light camers, and presumably the ROP themselves are undergoing more training in how to police traffic - but who knows? So increased fines are actually a good idea, it's a stronger deterrant. RO 10 is not a significant deterrent, if you're driving a nice car and speeding, a flash for 10 is a minor annoyance, nothing more, and so it doesnt deter people as much as it used to. Inflation and all that. 10 fines costing RO 100, versus 10 fines costing RO 350, suddenly thats in the range of an annual insurance premium, and people will take more notice of their speed.

People are starting to talk about Eid 2 holidays. From what I've been told so far, it looks like we'll get saturday - tuesday off (including a day for the National Day). Flights back to Europe are being booked already, with many people opting to take leave on the Wednesday and get 9 days vacation. I guess time will tell. I plan to spend Eid 2 camping here in Oman.

Finally, on Oman Forum, user Supermacs posted a rather amusing flowchart, copied below for your entertainment.

The flowchart came from this website.

The Ghubra Car windscreen smashing thing

So, a few months ago, a user on the Oman Forum started this thread. It was about a bunch of car's windscreens being smashed in and around Ghubra. It also happened in Ruwi as well, reportedly 27 cars there got smashed recently as well.

Enter the ROP, and some investigative police-work.

It has come to my attention that an Omani PRO / driver for a large engineering consultancy firm has been fingered for the crime of smashing up all the cars in Ghubra. Rather more disturbingly, is the evidence rumoured to be cited by the ROP. I have had 2 independent confirmations on this, but as always, I'm sure there is another side to the story.

The unfortunate PRO / driver has been fingered because his finger prints were on a letter inside one of the cars. It has apparently escaped the ROP's attention that the reason why this chaps finger print is on that letter in that car is probably because he gave the driver of that car the letter after having picked it up from the company PO box. And the owner of that particular smashed up car being an employee of the same firm. Apparently that does not matter to the prosecuting authorities, and now the case is going to court.

One does wonder whether the ROP have found this persons finger prints somewhere else, but this has not been verified, only that his prints were on a letter that he handed to the owner of that particular car that day. Very strange.

But at least they are dusting for prints!

Obviously it was a bunch of kids that were bored and decided to break some windscreens. One wonders whether these are the same bunch of kids suspected of taking part in gang rapes in Azaibah as the Undercover Dragon reported on the Muscat Confidential blog.

le fin

New speed cameras by the airport

OK so it seems the ROP are suffering from Gordon Brown's misplaced belief that Speed Cameras are the answer to slowing people down on the roads. They appear to be testing 3 new speed camera's at the moment, two completely new models, and one is the blue Dubai-style lollipop one. It is understood that all of these devices will still continue to capture from the rear, but the two new style camera's appear to have devices that measure your speed over a certain area, and will still flash if it decides you were going too fast. I'd like to see that one in practice, as evidence needs to be given - I'd imagine only image or video can suffice, yet the camera only points one way (so it cant record you coming).

I was out with a friend to try and capture images of these new cameras, but the new "bird house" one we were unable to get a picture of, thankfully the kind people at omania2.net were.

So here are the pics:

1. The original Style:


2. The Dubai Lollipop style:


3. The new floor-mounted style:


4. The new birdhouse style (credit to Omania2):



And then, as if to proove a point that these speed radar's are not the fool-proof solution that so many people think them to be, we saw this:


There's a foot-bridge going over the highway, and what is that, right there, under the foot bridge? Oh thats just someone too lazy to use the bridge, so decides to cross the highway by jay-walking. People like that need to be fined and arrested, because they cause a lot of accidents to.

So it looks like the ROP are taking a step in the right direction with these trials of new speed traps. I'd imagine the older ones will be re-allocated to other roads within the Sultanate. Perhaps the road from Nizwa to Thumrait? Or perhaps on a few roads here in town? 18th November could be a lucrative prospect for the ROP!

Ramadahn looks like it's going to be called this Friday or Saturday, and so the carnage will begin. I will be keeping a week-daily tally on the accidents I see on the stretch of road between Wizarat round about and the start of 18th November street. I'm predicting over 40 vehicles will be damaged in accidents in that one area alone.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

le fin

More traffic deaths and statistics.

Rather alarmingly, 26 people died and 143 were injured in the week between 18th and 24th of July. Of these, 59 collisions were between vehicles, 34 involved collisions with fixed objects and 21 were run-overs. The accidents also saw 23 vehicles roll off the road. The highest number of deaths recorded was in the interior with ten deaths. The worst accident was near Jebel Akhdar. A vehicle collided with a fixed object and resulted in the deaths of eight people and injury to two people. The vehicle was badly damaged in the incident.

....... In one week.

Ramadan starts at the end of next week.... I'm more than a little worried. Take care out there, especially if you're driving in the interior. As usual, the mad dash for the Khareef seems to have resulted in more people getting into accidents going from, or to Salalah.

On a more entertaining note, Dhofari Gucci has blogged again. About cows, again. hahaha :P

Her blog is a great read and I suggest you take the time to stop by her blog if you have some time.

Additionally, I highly recommend this 15-picture gallery on The Daily Telegraph - Amusing pictures of animals that got stuck in stuff (they all got out ok). I especially found the cow picture amusing :)

le fin

Seen a fatal car crash lately?

Chances are you have. Automotive-related accidents are on the rise. Significantly.

This website was recently launched to detail the number of car crashes, recording the fatalities and the injuries, and has current data until the last week of June. Then, unfortunately, it appears the author decided to go on holiday, and no new information has been posted for over a month. One hopes that the author continues with the website, as it is very useful.

The statistics, are quite frankly shocking. Below is a table pulled from The Week which shows the rise in deaths and injuries on Oman's roads up until 2008. Unfortunately I do not have access to the monthly data (if anyone knows where to get that from please let me know).

Horrors Stats

Year	Total Deaths	Injured
2000	492	9,323
2001	499	9,625
2002	580	7,907
2003	578	6,375
2004	637	6,636
2005	689	6,658
2006	681	7,548
2007	798	8,531
2008	961	10,558

The trend is pretty clear, and all recent news reports point to it getting worse. In just the first 44 days of this year, Over 140 people were killed on Oman’s roads, a rise of 16 per cent on the 2008 statistics. And that information is just the first 44 days of the year.

And June 2009, was even worse. Again, The Week published data on automotive accidents in this article. 67 people lost their lives, and 817 people injured in a total of 644 car accidents just for June 2009. 77, seventy seven, of these were for run overs. RUN OVERS. What is it going to take to stop people leisurely crossing the highways here? Regularly I see people walking across the highway, UNDERNEATH a pedestrian bridge. Why are these people not being fined for jay-walking?

10,566 new vehicles were registered in June 2009; and 5076 new driving licenses were issued in the same period. We are all aware of Oman's impending huge population boom, Muscat Confidential covered this recently here. New license issues are only going to rise in the future, and the standard of Oman's driving instruction "schools" is appallingly low. The only requirements one apparently needs to be a driving instructor here in the Sultanate are: To be Omani, to have driven for at least 5 years, and to have a car with burgundy red stripes on it. There is no testing body in place to adequately assess the driving capabilities of these instructors. And it's a tough subject to broach too, because, obviously, if an instructor is deemed not up to scratch, then they will effectively loose their method of income until they get up to scratch. And that obviously presents problems in itself. But perhaps something can be done? Perhaps a phased plan to implement minimum testing requirements on driving instructors? Additionally, 135,137 traffic-related offences were recorded for the month. That's a lot of fines, yet interestingly no data was published on licenses revoked for dangerous driving. It is worth noting that the Royal Oman Police document on Traffic Law does have a clear-cut traffic policing outline, it's just not being enforced.

So what is being done about this? Not a lot. A few press releases have been printed in the last few months of ROP initiatives and the Oman Road Safety Association have been busy making statements, but nothing seems to be happening yet. Well, I've seen an increase in those portable speed traps being positiond along some roads, which apparently doesnt do anything for the ROP except raise more cash for them, because they are not counting points - as their own document suggests that they do.

The number of bald tyres on trucks that I've seen while waiting at red lights; the number of times I've seen people fail to stop at a Stop Sign; fail to yield at a yield (give-way) sign; under-take on a highway; over-take on a solid line; excessively over-speed (read: 15Km/h over the limit); drive at 70 Km/h in the middle lane in a 120 KM/h zone; run red lights; driving with their Niqāb or Burqa on (read the law - this is illegal); driving with black sheets draped across their windscreens and windows. The number of times I see this stuff every week is enough for me to know that the ROP can do more. Why are they not doing more?

One significant problem appears to be the issue of Wasta. An ROP officer is less-inclined to hand someone a ticket when they know that person is a local, presumably because their cousin/uncle/brother/etc is in the ROP, or knows someone in the ROP, and they will just have the fine reversed later on. This problem needs to be addressed, at the highest levels of Government, if we're going to be serious about tackling this problem.

As Ramadan approaches, everyone please take extra-care on the roads. Statistically more of us are going to die in August and September than in any other month this year. Try to remember that the next time you feel the need for speed, mmmkay? Lead by example, that's the best way.

le fin