Someone left their beautiful XJ220 to die. Autoblog got the article from CrankandPiston.com (article here), and by the looks of the photos, it looks like it’s a write-off in the Industrial area. For those that don’t know, the Industrial area is the equivelant of the rusty ship from the movie Waterworld. It’s a dump.

If I find this car, I’m going to chase down the owner and ask to buy it since he has no need for it. (Hopefully it can be restored!)

I hit 100 and he was still coming up behind me. By now I could see it was some tiny hatch-back. He got so close to me (bumper to bumper) that I breaked to get him to back off. When he did, I moved over to the right hand lane and looked into his car.

He was a police man. In fact, he looked like a traffic police man. ‘Oh reeeeeeaally?’ I thought. So I opened my window and he did too (we were both driving around 60 now and talking).

‘What do you think you’re doing putting my life at risk?’

‘What?’ he says.

‘Why are you speeding! It’s dangerous.’, I scream back.

‘YOU were speeding’, he replies. It’s obvious he’s trying to cover himself now.

‘Only to avoid being rammed into by you!’

He grins and by then I take it he’s just another idiot on the road, (except sadly he’s also shaming his uniform), so I raise the window and he shoots off.

*sighs*

update: just to be clear, this road was an 80km road and the person coming up behind me had just passed a camera.

Wow! What a segway there! Anyway, I was just told that calling Bahrain on Vodafone for the Grand Prix costs QR 0.69  per minute (so that’s the 12th to the 14th).

In short, my concept was that there would be a speed camera that would tag a car that passed by with an unique identifier. When passing the second speed camera, it would calculate how long it took the car to reach it and calculate the average speed. If the car passed the second camera’s checkpoint too quickly, then you would be fined.

Pros: You can’t slow down at the camera then speed up, you have to follow the speed limit.

Cons: The only way to escape is to be a mathematician. If the limit is 80km, and you drove up to 100km for 50 meters and then slowed down to 60 for 50 meters then you’d be safe. (People who speed aren’t geniuses though right?)

Here’s a picture of the new camera and here’s their explanation of how it works

New Traffic Cameras Qatar are not just nice looking – they are intelligent technology.

What does this mean?
It means that you can stop speeding up between cameras and slowing down as it does not matter anymore. If you are speeding in between 2 cameras you will get fined.

What happened next was a shocker. The guy that the indian guy cut off was in a jeep and it looked like he was pretty pissed off because he over-took the car and then tried to ‘slice him’ (Slicing is when you turn onto another car as close as possible with the intention of scaring the other individual and is usually done to teach someone a ‘lesson’.)

The jeep mis-judged it seems (or this could be intentional) and smashed the tiny car causing him to fly onto the side-walk. The jeep kept going but then slowed down to park on the emergency lane. As I passed I looked into the car to see it looked like a Shami family. A male driver, a woman in the passenger seat and two people in the back.

So I memorized his plate and called the police to let them know what I just saw. (I wanted to explain what I saw before one or the other lied about it.)

Talk about serious road-rage! As I arrived at the mall, I kind of empathized with the Jeep. I myself am sick and tired of people not indicating and almost crashing into me. (The day before I had called Karwa to let them know that one of their taxis almost crashed me on a round-about and then was unapologetic about it AND he had a passenger!)

On the other hand, of course crashing another person intentionally isn’t acceptable at all!

MT told me about Al Anabi team just a few days ago and what a coincidence that I find this picture. Apparantly these guys have been streaking their way to the top of the Drag Racing and Funny Car scene. These guys chased their dreams and acheived this all on a tight budget when they started. A quarter of what the professionals spent.

Respect to these guys, it’s fantastic to see that Qatar is representing in the US!

Click below for more pictures

Driving there was pretty easy thanks to my navigation but I can tell you that the most difficulty you’ll face is in Saudi thanks to lack of signs.

While driving to the Qatar-Saudi border, Omar tells me to get ready, smile, don’t give any lip to the Saudies. I pass the Qatari side smoothly. It’s all very straight forward. Go to window one, show your ID and registration, get some Saudi insurance (daily or weekly) in case you break down in that country, and then get your car checked out (for smuggling and whatnot). It’s the same process once you reach the Saudi side. The difference? It looks like it’s been deserted. Glass if broken, the checkpoints aren’t all accessible and the men don’t smile. Luckily Qatar’s side had cute friendly girls that smiled and tried to make you feel relaxed. In fact, every single person I passed on the Qatar side wished me a safe journey with a smile.

I was panicking about the Saudi side. No thanks to Omar I thought I was going to get ‘the glove’. The man at the first point asks for my I.D. no smiles, no thank you, no niceties. He looks at me for a second and says “go’. Omar looks at me and explains it’s never that easy. When it’s time to check my car, Omar says “get out and leave the doors open”. I do. The guy just looks into the trunk and says “Go”.

“Thank you”, I reply with a sense of releif. We’re now on the move. Driving through Saudi is a bit surreal. Busted up roads, crazy drivers that swirve for no reason, broken sheds on the sides of the road. You thought Qatari driving was so bad, just come to Saudi for a day. We’re on the road passing some soft and silky dunes. I see some camels relaxing on the side. “Want a smoke?” one asks? *shakes head*. Woops sorry, was day dreaming for a second. The camels there come in a variety of colours too! White, black, tan, and pink. Yep seems like someone thought it would be cool to spray paint one of the camel’s humps.

After a long while of driving, I see something on the road. It’s a large camel. For a moment by brain doesn’t register that as a fact. “Omar… is that a camel?”. Omar was sleeping. He gets up and looks. “Yeah, they sleep on the roads sometimes.”. I swirve to avoid it. Ok. Now it’s time to be vigilant.

What next? A swarm of locusts? SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH. The damn roads have SPEEDBUMPS with no warning prior on a highway! What the hell is that?! Who does that? (I ended up having to fix my disc thanks to that).

As I entered into the main city, I start to see that the roads are no better and that it looks like I’m one of the most oldest looking towns I’ve ever seen. The driver in front of me veers left and right. I usually don’t care but he didn’t have anyone in front of him! Typical.

After a few hours of driving I’m at the Saudi Bahrain bridge. The Saudi side is actually friendly and it’s smooth. The Bahraini side wasn’t. The funny thing is, I expected them to be nicer than the Saudi side. I guess the ones who spoke to me didn’t like Qataris or thought that we are like the Saudis that come over to have a couple of drinks and go home. I spent 17 years of my life in Bahrain and I still love that country. The Bahraini side though looked like a cheap christmas tree with it’s lighting and burnt out lights. To be honest, this was one of the first times that I saw that Qatar’s side was amazing in comparison.

I arrive home after around 6 hours of driving (1 hour was at the Bahrain side because it was PACKED full of Saudis trying to get their groove on for the weekend.)

I sink into bed. It’s late now and I’m tired of driving. Tired… driving… O_O …. o_o …. -_- zzzzzz

I looked at the police man on the round about and made gestures as if to say ‘Look at her!’. At that point I rolled down the window and said “Are you blind? I was coming in from there and she just turned into me”. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “Ah well, that’s life”. WTF?!

Now tell me, was I wrong?

My accident was a stupid one as well. While at a round about, I was turning right and there was a car in front of me. The road was clear. He accelerated to turn right, I looked left to ensure there were no cars, he continues turning right and for NO REASON, he slams on his breaks! I bang into him unable to swerve. I even followed the two second distance rule.

His car looked scratched up from the back but no way I could have done that! He explains that it wasn’t me, in fact it was caused by bikes hitting the back of his car. Bikes!! Even BIKES crash into him. He must slam on the breaks for fun!

So the Indian guy apologizes and says that his foot slipped onto the break… fine… We move our cars to the side and I ask to speak to his boss (He was a driver). I explain what happened and the guy was more than friendly and just seemed to care more about my health. We later went to the police station where I had to get a police report so that I could fix my bumper.

Filled out the forms and was told to come back the next day for the stamp of approval because they only stamped documents during the day. As the Indian man left, he shook my hand and said ‘thank you’ with a smile. I autonymously answered “It’s ok, take care.” and smiled back.

I headed off to Lexus so that they could order and spray the new bumper. After filling out the papers I was told that it would cost around 2,000QR (it’s 700 for the bumper, 100 for the paint, and around 1,200 for the labour!). I was shocked when they said it would be ready tomorrow!

“What? The lexus service which I loathe has improved?”, I asked myself. The next day I went back to the police station where I was shocked at how they treated me and others. They were amazingly friendly.

They were renovating the police department and it actually looks much better inside and out. As I approached the first desk, the woman smiled at me and asked for the paper. “300 QR and 3 points for parking on in a no parking zone”. (Side note, there were no signs or indications that it was a no parking zone). I paid. “Hope that God protects you from bad things. Take care of yourself.”, she says as she hands me the receipt. I get a stamp on the document that I need to take to the insurance company.

To my right, I see a black American man, he’s confused and doesn’t know where to go. “Hey sir, can you tell me where the registration desk is.”, he asks a police man standing on the side. He answers in his best possible English, “My friend, you in wrong place. Come, I show. How are you?”, he puts his arm on the guys shoulder and guides him. (and not in the LAPD way).

As I walk out, a man asks me where the traffic plates are, I point to the direction. He smiles and says “thank you, I’ve been trying to find it and didn’t know where to go, peacefull journey.”.

It was almost as if this was traffic fine bliss. Imagine a paradise. Clouds. Smiling people. All waving their traffic fines high up over their heads as if they’d won the lottery.

I drove to the insurance department to get some new papers which I had to hand over to Lexus. While cuing, a British man starting talking to me how he’d reversed into a pole in his Porsche and felt stupid. We chatted about how the weather was getting better while waiting for our turns. After finishing off, I got into my car and headed back to the office. I was going to go to Lexus after work.

Lexus called me. -_-.

“The bumper will take three more days, you know what, it’s a weekend in three days, let’s just say next week.”, a man says.

“Whatever. Fine.”, I say. You don’t even bother with Toyota Qatar. They suck. Oh well, at least most of the day was nice.

When driving with Karwa (Taxi) always make sure to check the meters just in case you get a taxi man trying to be sneaky.

Just an FYI to others who relies on KARWA taxis as their means of transportation. Do check the meter codes when you get on a taxi. The meter code should be number 1 (inter-city meter charging) and NOT number “0″. The “0″ code is outside DOHA and the meter charge is much higher.