Road traffic in Bahrain is something akin to ‘Brownian Motion’, which can be defined as ‘the random motion of particles resulting from collisions between them’.
Road traffic in Bahrain is something akin to ‘Brownian Motion’, which can be defined as ‘the random motion of particles resulting from collisions between them’.
Anyone who is foolish enough to try to bring order to this chaos, and actually obey the rules of the road, is regarded as an alien life form. When I quietly tootle along within the speed limit, and observe the correct following distance, other motorists come alongside, yell and hoot, and glare at me as if I was some strange specimen.
Bahrain is about the size of a few suburbs in a large city and they don’t have enough space for cloverleaf interchanges. It is therefore often necessary to ride in the fast lane (the left lane) in anticipation of turning left.
This makes Bahraini driver’s blood boil! They tailgate, gesticulate and sometimes even try to drive you off the road. I usually respond with a discrete Italian salute but this is not advisable as it can lead to a criminal conviction, according to the official ‘Arab World Handbook’.
Why are Bahrainis always in a hurry? It can’t be because they have a long way to commute. It takes less than 20 minutes to drive from one end of the inhabited north of the island to the other, even in heavy traffic. Are they frenetically busy?
No, not in my experience. In fact, everyone here acknowledges that the pace of life, at least in the case of Bahrainis, is very slow, caterpillar rather than butterfly.
The reason for their haste on the roads is, in my opinion, that normally tranquil and courteous Bahrainis change personality when they climb behind the wheel. They become speed freaks. It doesn’t help that petrol and therefore speeding is cheap (it costs about R90 to fill your car) and that most of them are rich enough to buy high performance vehicles.
The different forms of bad driving in Bahrain, by Bahrainis who don’t know the meaning of lanes, by expats from India who squeeze through every gap, and by Saudi Arabians who speed excessively and jump red lights, further exacerbate matters.
Why do they change personality? Maybe it is the result of a sense of frustration about not getting stuff done?
The outcome of this mayhem is that there is a road accident in Bahrain every 45 seconds and a fatal accident, on average, every three to four days.
South Africans should count their blessings that they only have to contend with errant minibus taxis and the occasional languorous farmer!
* Professor Mike Bruton is the Director of the Bahrain Science Centre. He was previouslyFounder of the Department of Ichthyology & Fisheries Science at Rhodes University and Director of the then JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology in Grahamstown.
