Traffic in Riyadh

Yes, of course, Drivers should respect the traffic laws and respect each other and stop being selfish. Besides, there should be altrnative routs for the roads with construction works which seem endless.

And get the morons that crash off the bloody road rather than sitting there where it happened waiting for 3 hours for the cops to turn up ... Or just dont crash is even better

Classic yesterday. Guy goes down the road the wrong way and has a head on with the guy from ajoining street driving in the correct direction

Develop Public Transport System over a period of Time !!

In case of crashes, the rule is: DONT MOVE THE CAR EVEN A BIT TILL THE COPS ARRIVE. This must be softened as it's in UAE. A huge need of improvement required in police system/Najm when an accident is reported.

And as Amin also said, there is a great need of alternate routes. As I know some great projects are being run which will impact drastically soon.

Public transport?
"Where is the 8am bus?"
    "It will be here by 9, inshalllah ...."

Louise.Welge wrote:

"It will be here by 9, inshalllah ...."

AM or PM ???

pm next week

Have to admit though that the traffic is better (believe me) after they introduced the saher system. At present they do need to expand on the saher system so we have average speed cameras and lane violation cameras.

For future a tram / monorail system is needed. (unfortunately at present it will not be a success as it is not in the average local saudi person's nature to use public transport, it will change over time  with more and more people experiencing public transport when they travel abroad).

Reducing the number of vehicles on the roads is difficult at present as petrol is cheap and I suppose it is one of the benefits being in the Magic Kingdom.

Well Said @SaudiUK.

Car Pooling is another Idea... you save money. you save planet. you reduce traffic congestion. you make more friends. you reduce your stress.

@SaudiUK
Applying Saher lead to less accidents in total, but caused the traffic to flow less smoothly than ever and hence caused accidents.
Examples:
1-    When you have 8 cameras at some intersection to capture those who pass a red light, you could pass a green light and still get fined as you find yourself in the middle of the intersection waiting for the other cars in front of you, and then the light goes red and the camera take photos for all those in the intersection assuming they all passed a red light. Besides, when putting cameras on those intersections, there should be timers that show how many seconds remaining for the next red/green light, so people won’t rush to pass a green light when they actually can’t make it and hence have to brake hard which could cause them to get crashed from behind by other cars that are as speeding, and if the cars in the front were right on the zebra line (which is never used for pedestrians in here) the crashing cars from behind could push them to pass the line and get fined.
2-    The speed limits in some streets are too low to be safe. The streets that most Saudis and some non-Saudis used to drive at a certain speed normally, now with Saher, they have to drive with almost 50 to 80% less speed which is hard to apply all at once. i.e. in some streets were people used usually to drive at 110 or 120kph, now with Saher they have to drive at 70kph which too slow for most locals and some non-locals (not you, westerners) compared to how fast they used to drive before Saher, plus speed cameras capture the cars that are doing 1kph and above the speed limit which is not applied in any other spots in the world, as I know. I know people who were fined for doing 73 where the speed limit is 70, 85 when the speed limit is 80, and 125 where the speed limit is 120kph. In other countries, you have a margin of 10kph above the speed limit before you get fined which can help make quick and safe overtaking maneuvers. Man is not a machine that can be programmed to drive at a 100% steady speed. Too much focusing on your speedometer needle could cause to more accidents. There also should be a minimum speed limits as some drivers drive on the ring roads (for example) at the fastest lane at a speed of 70 when the road is 1km open ahead, which can cause traffic jams, confusion and accidents.
The idea of applying a traffic system such as Saher is supposed to be for a safer traffic, but the fact is that Saher is a total rubbery: No timers at traffic lights, no safe margins above speed limits, and no fixed places for Saher mobile camera vans or SUVs, unlike the case in the UK, for example, where people previously know where the speed cameras are as have signs that alert them or they can search them on the map online.
I agree that some people here drive too fast to be safe, but the fact is that some others drive too slowly to be safe which could cause a lot of confusion on the road and hence cause accidents. A Saudi friend of mine told me once that if all divers in Saudi were Saudis, there would be less accidents, because most of them drive rather fast and they disobey the traffic rules in the same way, which sets new rules for breaking rules, which is something that is not understood by non-locals who are new comers and that leads to misunderstanding, confusion, and possible accidents.  I’m not with over-speeding though, but not also with too slow speeds that are hard to apply in a country where you have to drive for 20-30km to get from home to work and vice versa, where you are not willing to spend 1-1.5 hours on the road averaging at 20-30kph, where you have cars with big engine displacements and open wide roads that makes speeding up tempting in a country were a liter of petrol is cheaper than a liter of drinking water. It is hard to change the mentality of Saudis who used to drive that fast, which is sometimes too dangerous, for the past 40 years all in a sudden. Things should change gradually. This is neither Europe nor the US.
It is hard to apply western driving standards in a country like Saudi this fast. It should be applied gradually and there should be a complete traffic system that cares first about general safety, before looking for making money.
A tram system is a very good idea and if not used by Saudis, it would be used by many non-locals. i.e. Asians labour who don’t have their own cars. They would welcome the idea as it would be less expensive and faster than moving by car.  That would reduce the number of cars that would be bought to give those labour lifts.

I guess I deserve a thank-you note from you for reading your post all through Trust me most readers won't; they'll just run away after reading the first 2/3 lines [human nature]

Almost everything you have said is right. I always say that they must invest more on mounting counters rather than the cameras.

I guess these days most cameras have been converted to flashers only. Spreading a message is sometimes enough rather than the real actions.

@TheLegendLeads
Thank you very much for reading my too-long-to-read post. I truly appreciate your post which was the only reply after my post.

Yep, everyone browsed away as I guessed

I always love reading your write-ups Amin. They are written with heart, very informative and basically show the flow of your thoughts. I enjoy.

I enjoy ready your posts too, TheLegendLeads! They are pretty much what I would say!

Has anyone spotted the naughty mobile speed cameras hidden in normal road cars, poking through sunshields was a goodun.
A broken down car with its hood up, but with a camera poking out the back window, another was a car that looked like someone was sleeping in it as it had all it windows blocked out with blankets, but with the camera poking out. The best one was yesterday beside the airbase, a damage front ended 4 x 4 by the side of the road, but with a camera in the front window, sneaky feckers.
What next, watch this space.

Moestavern wrote:

Has anyone spotted the naughty mobile speed cameras hidden in normal road cars, poking through sunshields was a goodun.
A broken down car with its hood up, but with a camera poking out the back window, another was a car that looked like someone was sleeping in it as it had all it windows blocked out with blankets, but with the camera poking out. The best one was yesterday beside the airbase, a damage front ended 4 x 4 by the side of the road, but with a camera in the front window, sneaky feckers.
What next, watch this space.

lol...yeah saw that!

That is just to show how much greedy these people are in 'fining' the 'violators'...!!!

sooner, they'd be camouflaged - and harder to spot...

Thank God!!!! Never had a ticket from SAHER!