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Posts Tagged ‘Dubai’

Did Blackberry Outages Cut Abu Dhabi Traffic Accidents by 40 Percent?

A three-day Blackberry service outage last week in parts of the United Arab Emirates once again demonstrates the value of “distracted driving” laws. According to an article in The National, an English-language paper in Abu Dhabi, traffic accidents in Dubai last week fell 20 percent from average rates on the days when BlackBerry users were unable to use its messaging service. In Abu Dhabi, the number of accidents last week fell 40 percent, and there were no fatal accidents. According to the article, on average there is a traffic accident every three minutes in Dubai, and a fatal accident every two days in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi recently launched a campaign against cell phone use while driving and plans to use electronic evidence in traffic cases.


Dubai's Rebuttal

Recently, we highlighted a British journalist’s story about the underside of Dubai’s startling ascent. Some in Dubai called foul, including one writer who wants to remind Britons that their own country has a dark side. After all, what to think of a country in which one fifth of the population lives in poverty? [%comments]


Dubai's Dark Side

| You may have read about the glut of cars abandoned at Dubai’s airport as expats fled the country in the wake of the global financial crisis. Journalist Johann Hari digs deeper and tells the story of a Canadian woman who moved to Dubai with her husband. He got into debt trouble in the emirate and was sent to prison . . .


Dubai

I had the pleasure of visiting Dubai for the first time last week. The city is a wonderful example of unintended consequences; because it had the misfortune of almost running out of oil, it was forced to create other ways of generating income. It has since made huge investments in both tourism and the financial sector. Although I didn’t get . . .