Speaking of cars.... #Nomoretraffictickets

Sooooo...  I have not been the best driver in my life, even if you remove fainting at the wheel (see this post for details on that). I've had my fair share of accidents and traffic tickets, but the entire first year I was here I didn't get any tickets!

Let me back up. Speed is monitored by numerous merciless radar cameras like this one:

photo from https://www.drivearabia.com/news/2013/01/31/abu-dhabi-gets-15-new-radars-uae/

As an aside, the speed limits used to be 20 kph over the posted limit, and it is still like that in Dubai. Yes, you read that correctly. So when the sign said 60 kph, you could actually go 80 and the radar was set to 81. On the way to Dubai (an hour-and-a-half up the road) the speed limit is 140 kph. And so the signs used to say 120 but you were just supposed to know that you could drive 140.

On Sunday, August 12 of 2018 the speed "buffer" was eliminated.  So now when you drive to Dubai, which is in a different Emirate and thus subject to different laws, The signs say 140 kph until you cross into Dubai where they the signs turn to 120 but you can go 140 the entire time. If you're confused, try figuring this out when you're driving!

Most cars here beep at 120 kph, and my rental car last year [a Mazda 2] did. And I got no tickets. ZERO.

This year's car was a Chevy Spark, however, and it did NOT beep at 120. I repeat, NO beep!!

Guess how many tickets I got between August and December?  Guess!  4. FOUR!!  FOUR!!!

Two were at the same radar. You can go online, enter your license plate number and see a picture of your car getting "flashed", as I call it. During the day it's not so obvious if you've been flashed, but at night it's pretty clear: pass the radar, slam on brakes, flash!  You know you've been caught. If you own your car, you get a text as soon as it happens, but since I rent my tickets come through my rental agency.

If I pay the fine through the rental company I get an additional 30 AED tacked on to the 300 AED fine (about $82 USD), but if I go to the police and pay them myself, I can save the extra fee by submitting my receipt to the rental company.

Last week I decided to go in a pay them. There is a lot of prepping that goes into these things. Every new thing takes 2 hours. No matter what. There is always getting lost and going to the wrong line or wrong building and two or three unexpected things you will have to do that wasn't published or who know what else.

I arrived at 4ish after work. There was a long line of about 5 men waiting for the one receptionist. This is always where you start. Suddenly this Emirati gentleman behind me says, "Excuse me, Miss, you can go to front."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Do I just walk up there?"

"Ya, ya. To the front."

"Thank you so much!" I say, and then walk slowly to the front and stand there waiting until the [one] receptionist finishes with the man he's talking. I notice a sign that says, "Ladies only line". Finally he turns to me.

I explain that I want to pay my traffic fines but I rent my car so cannot do it online. Oh, and by the way, I read about a 25% discount and may I have that, please? He says the discount is only if you own the car but takes my license and Emirates ID. He looks some things up then tells me I can pay on the machines behind us, just put in this number there, pointing to something.

Predictably [because nothing here every works correctly the first few tries], I could not make the machine pull up my tickets. Back to the receptionist I went, quietly waiting my turn.

The receptionist turns to me again and says, "Jallas (which means, finished?), what is wrong?"  I explain that I can't get it to work.

In the full spirit of departments of motor vehicles around the world he gets up, abandons the line and takes me to the machine. He gets me to the point of paying with my credit card (in Arabic, of course, but I only have the one screen left) and goes back to work. I pay!  Yay!

It doesn't give me a receipt. Arg.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the money, plus two 30 AED fees had already been drafted from my bank account to my rental car company. But I had a printout of my traffic fines from a friend and both of those tickets were still listed! Obviously the rental company had not reported to the government yet about my payment. I called my rental car guy who said if I paid the fines myself they would refund my money and the extra fees.

Thus I needed the receipt.

After unsuccessfully accosting the machine for a while trying I go back to my car, telling myself that I would figure it out online later. I sat, frustratedly fighting reality. I'd been there almost an hour now. I did not want to stand in front of the receptionist again.

I go back to the front of the line that is now even longer.

Again I wait. Again he turns to me. "What now? I thought you finished!" It didn't give me a receipt! "You need receipt? Come here. Sit down." I come around the desk and sit in the chair next to him. I'm pretty sure I misunderstood what he meant because as soon as I sat down he put a number in my hand and told me, "go to one of counters over there," pointing me in the right direction. This space looked like every DMV I've ever been in: about a dozen positions, each with a chair and a computer and only 3 with people behind them. There are rows of chairs in the waiting area and about two dozen men scattered throughout them.

I walk up to the counter where the other two women are. An Emirati man is behind the counter helping a local woman while a blonde expat woman sits waiting. I stand nearby so as to cut off anyone who dares skip the line. Alas, a local man does just that, and I do not assert myself but rather wait impatiently for all these people to finish.

Finally it is my turn. I explain that I just paid four tickets but no receipt was given by the machine. He does lots of looking up with my license and Emirates ID but cannot find them. Finally I say, "I have the tickets numbers here [on the paper from my friend]. Will that help?"

He looks at me and says, "Why you not tell me this from beginning?"

"I'm sorry! This is my first time paying tickets," I say.

"I know," he says, smiling. Now we're cracking. Last question: "You need Arabic or English?"

Thus, less that an hour and 15 minutes later I walked out of the Police Headquarters with my English receipt to send to my car rental company.

Aside from the pride I felt at persevering through yet another new experience in Abu Dhabi, what marked this occasion in my mind was how kind the Emirati men were to me. This was the first time I really felt that local men were being nice to me.

What's probably more true, however, is that I have chilled out and have learned to see kindness in a new way. I used to be so anxious about social protocols here that I wouldn't have noticed is someone was nice to me. The culture shock was so high that I felt threatened by everyone and so reacted to everyone as if they were going to hurt me. Walking around on the defensive all the time does not invite people to be nice, and certainly doesn't prepare me to notice any goodness in the people around me.

As I heard at a spinning class once, "to relax is to trust", and so I am grateful that I have settled into Abu Dhabi enough to relax and trust that people are good and kind, no matter what they wear, how they speak or where they are from.

Oh, and I'm watching the speed limit now.