NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL
Far more drivers fined for phone calls
Dubai - MAR 17: Almost as many motorists were fined for using their mobile phones while driving in the first two months of this year as in the whole of 2008.
Dubai Police issued 2,005 fines for the offence in January and February, compared with 2,552 last year when the monthly average was 212.
It is punishable with four black points and a Dh200 (US$55) fine. Drivers who rack up 24 points within a year face a three-month driving ban.
The rate of people being fined has increased rapidly this year. In January, 866 offences were recorded, while in February there were 1,139 – almost a third more. The statistics reflect the mounting campaign to curb what is a common practice among UAE drivers.
Nadia Helou, a Lebanese motorist caught using a mobile phone while driving on Sheikh Zayed Road, said: “Obviously, I was embarrassed because I knew it was illegal. I knew they saw me and I knew I was getting fined before they put the lights and sirens on.”
However, no figures are available for the number of car accidents caused by motorists using mobile phones.
“Usually at every crash, we find a phone, but it is difficult to tell if the phone was in their hand,” said Brig Mohammed Saif al Zafin, the director of the General Department of Traffic of Dubai Police. “We don’t know if they were using the phone, listening to a CD or talking to a passenger in the car.”
Police safety campaigns aimed at drivers have already had an effect. Road deaths dropped from 332 in 2007 to 293 in 2008 – an 11.7 per cent decline.
Last month Dubai Police launched a year-long awareness campaign, Cross Safely, to keep up the momentum.
“We focus now on improving safety on the roads and it looks like it is working,” said Brig al Zafin.
The Roads and Transport Authority has said it wants to cut the number of road accidents resulting in death or serious injury by 40 per cent over the next six years.
Bus hold-up keeps taxi meters ticking
Ras al Khaimah - MAR 17: The public bus service in Ras al Khaimah is being deliberately held back for another year to provide business for RAK’s taxi firms, the transport authority has said.
This is despite fare increases last spring that is claimed have made taxis too expensive for many labourers.
The buses were originally scheduled to start running in Sept 2008, but later postponed until Jan 2009. Transport officials now admit the system will not be ready for at least a year.
Jason Farhat, the authority’s director of commercial and investment affairs, said the delay was to provide more business for RAK’s three new taxi companies and their combined fleet of 1,600 new cabs.
“Internally we are holding back because the new taxis haven’t brought all of the fleet yet and we need to introduce the rest of the fleet very soon.”
In Feb 2008, taxi fares rose to 75 fils per kilometre from 50 fils, and the starting fare to Dh2.50 from Dh2.
One independent taxi driver said he and his friends gave illegal discounts to low-wage workers.
“In Dubai, if your salary is good, you use a taxi,” he said. “If your salary is low, you use the bus. But here, where’s the bus? How can passengers afford to use the meter? These men make a salary of Dh800 [US$220 a month] or Dh1,000. What will he save? Nothing.”
“It costs around Dh25 to go to the industrial area. The labourers come to Nakheel and wait hours for three or four of their colleagues to come so they can share a taxi.”
Mr Farhat said the authority was studying alternatives that included using school buses on public routes until the planned service was running.
“We are studying an alternative now,” he said. “The public works department have 13 buses that take children to school in the morning from Jazirat al Hamra. We would like to use them within the cities and surrounding areas.”
These buses could be operational by the end of the month, he said.
The transport authority is also seeking to expand transport services to areas outside the city.
“We were talking about 30 buses for the rural area,” said Mr Farhat. “We will designate five per cent of the total taxi fleet to rural areas. That’s about 80 taxis. We have already sent 10 to al Ghail, 10 to Adhan and five to Masafi.”
Yousef Esmaeel, the vice chairman and managing director of the transport authority, blamed infrastructure problems for the delay to the city bus service.
“We don’t have a proper structure for bus stops,” he said. “We are considering many things but we have real requirements.”
Taxi drivers said they were concerned there would not be enough business, claiming that the recession, higher meter rates and the new ban on sharing taxis had already hurt business.
Some taxi drivers at the new companies, who earn a base salary of Dh500 plus commission, fear for their future. One, who switched from the independent yellow and white taxis to a new taxi company for better security, said customers were disappearing.
“When the buses come here the work for taxis will stop,” he said. “But the bus system is better for customers.
“The economic recession is a big problem. Before it was OK. In other years there were so many tourists. Last year I went to Dubai almost every day. Today is only the third time this month. Before I would go 15 or 20 times a month.”
Shemeer Majeed, 31, an Indian who has lived in RAK for 10 years and works at UAE Exchange in Jazirat al Hamra, 20 minutes from the centre of RAK, said: “The cost of taxis for people like me is affordable, but for bachelors, it’s very difficult.
“If the price [of taxis] is more, they have to give another option for low-salary people.”
Key highway project right on track
One lane on the Saadiyat Bridge is expected to be completed next month, allowing construction vehicles to drive across it. Courtesy TDIC
ABU DHABI - MAR 17: The Saadiyat link needed for a major motorway that will dramatically reduce the time it takes to travel downtown from Abu Dhabi International Airport will be ready by Sept 1.
The Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) took The National for a helicopter tour of Saadiyat Island this week, providing an exclusive survey of infrastructure progress on the project.
Aldar’s 1.4km Saadiyat Bridge is 85 per cent finished, with just a few gaps left to fill in visible from the air. By next month one lane will be finished, allowing construction vehicles to pass over the new bridge.
On the ground, the 6.5km island section of the motorway is 60 per cent complete. Each section has five lanes in each direction.
When the link is fully constructed in September, it will connect Abu Dhabi Island to Saadiyat Bridge and the Abu Dhabi-Dubai motorway, with traffic able to pass through Saadiyat to Yas Island and back on to the mainland.
It was the most tangible evidence yet that a major chunk of the more than 20km Shahama-Saadiyat Highway is just months away from easing the increasingly choked traffic flow through Abu Dhabi Island and providing a faster option for those living near the Corniche to exit the city. It was also the first indication that the link would be ready in time for the Formula One Grand Prix on Yas Island on Nov 1.
The 18-hole Saadiyat Beach Golf Course, designed by Gary Player, the South African golf legend, is scheduled for completion by September at the earliest. But it is already halfway there, with trees, sand traps and budding greens providing the most visible indications yet of what translates as the “Island of Happiness” might look like by its scheduled completion in 2018.
“Here we are putting in bridges and roads and water and sewerage, but people are most drawn to the progress of the golf course,” said Andrew Seymour, the director of infrastructure for the TDIC.
The economic downturn has so far had no impact on the reported Dh100 billion (US$22.7bn) project. If anything, said Mr Seymour, the recession has made it easier to get contractors and resulted in a 25 to 30 per cent reduction in costs associated with a drop in demand and the price of materials.
“It’s not really affected us at all to be honest with you,” he said. “Our projects are still full tilt, we’re still building, [there are] no changes whatsoever to the programmes that we had.”
The mark of progress is Aldar’s Saadiyat Bridge merging into the Shahama-Saadiyat Highway and providing access to Yas Island well ahead of the Nov 1 Grand Prix. “You’ll be able to drive across from Abu Dhabi to Yas Island all the way across Saadiyat and you’ll arrive at Yas in no time,” said Mr Seymour.
After the bridge connects to the island there will be “quite a spaghetti junction”, said Mr Seymour. Half-finished at present, it will eventually feature a dozen exits and entries shooting off to and from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saadiyat, with access through to Yas Island and Abu Dhabi International Airport. A journey between Saadiyat Island and the airport should take only 15 minutes.
Using 53 million cubic metres of sand dredged from the seabed offshore and funnelled to the island to create giant contours on either side, the Shahama-Saadiyat Highway twists and turns through an artificial valley to hide it and lessen the noise. The sloping hills maximise sea views for some of the island’s expected 160,000 residents.
A land bridge 180-metres wide, one of seven bridges and three tunnels on the island, gives access from the wetlands to Saadiyat Beach.
To the north-west, in what will be the cultural district, lies a framework of rocks laid out into the water that form the outline of the building platform for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum and the start of another for the Louvre Abu Dhabi beside it. Both areas will be lined with larger rocks and filled in with soil to provide a foundation for the museums. That earth will eventually be removed, making it appear as though the structures are sitting on the water.
Workers have dug a canal that will wrap around the Sheikh Zayed National Museum, on which construction is scheduled to start this summer. With four or five pedestrian bridges the canal will look good, said Mr Seymour, but it has been designed with security in mind to protect the artefacts and artworks in the three museums.
The island also features the beginnings of a planned 1,000-boat marina. To the right of the Guggenheim site, 8km of pristine white sand will become Saadiyat Beach.
Further on is TDIC’s project, the Starwood St Regis Hotel and Resort; construction is set to start in the next three months.
Four substations and a main power plant, sewage facilities, telecommunications, cable and a 30km potable water network with a ground storage tank and pump station that is halfway to completion form a complex grid providing services to the island.
“I think the progress has been really good over the last couple of years,” said Mr Seymour. “People don’t necessarily see so much, because we put so much earth in to create the contours.”
When the bridge and motorway open, drivers will not have much else to look at but the Saadiyat Beach Golf Course.
A second course, to be designed by Robert Trent Jones II, will eventually twist in among the wetlands to the south of the island.
A camp that by this summer should house the 20,000 labourers needed to complete the project is in the finishing stages.
Dubai police smash Captagon plot
DUBAI - MAR 17: Police foiled an attempt to smuggle 23kg of the drug Captagon into Saudi Arabia when they found 158,000 tablets of the illegal stimulant hidden in a car’s petrol tank.
Acting on a tip-off from Saudi police they discovered the drugs in a white BMW parked in a desert area on the outskirts of Dubai. They arrested three men after staking out the area where the car had been left.
The wholesale value in Europe of 23kg of Captagon is about Dhs2.5 million (US$681,000). Dubai Police, however, do not put an illicit market – or street – value on drug seizures in the UAE.
The arrests followed a joint operation by police investigating a GCC-wide drug-smuggling ring.
“With the co-operation of Saudi police and the general command of the Dubai Police, we have been able to seize a gang attempting to smuggle 23kg of the amphetamine Captagon into a neighbouring GCC state,” said Brig Abdul Jalil Mahdi, director of the anti-narcotics unit at Dubai Police. After ascertaining the validity of the information in co-ordination with the Saudi authorities, we set up a team and rushed to the site of the car.
“After inspecting it carefully and disassembling it we found a quantity of pills hidden in a professional manner – in the fuel tank.”
Lacking sufficient evidence to lead them to the gang, the police decided to reassembled the car and stake out the location.
“We waited for more than 24 hours before two suspects approached the vehicle,” said Brig Mahdi.
The police moved in and arrested the two men as soon as they entered the vehicle.
They both denied the charges. A third suspect was later arrested in connection with the haul. The case has been referred to the Public Prosecution for further investigation.
Brig Mahdi said the UAE faced a growing risk of being targeted by drug smugglers, given the amount of foreign interest attracted by the area’s rapid development.
In February, Dubai Police intercepted 33kg of heroin bound for South Africa via Dubai.
The efforts led police to another package containing 19kg of heroin, which was also on its way to South Africa.
Last month Dubai Customs seized 651,000 pills, or 104kg, of Captagon bound for Dubai.
They were hidden in industrial-sized spools of thread, packaged as though they would be sold for use in the textiles market. At the end of January 2008, four men were arrested after Dubai Customs seized 16kg of heroin that had been smuggled into the country in hollowed-out almonds. In the same month Sharjah Police seized 1kg of heroin and 290g of opium and arrested three people from one family.
Known locally as Abu Hilalain, Captagon is the brand name for a synthetic stimulant called fenethylline that was invented in the early 1960s.
It was later banned worldwide but is popular among some young people in the Arab world who use it recreationally, to stay awake or as a weight-loss aid. Much of the drug circulating is counterfeit.