In most jurisdictions, having a reason for doing something is not the same as having a defence. The man behind the tinted windows of a white 4x4 beast (I say man, since gallantry insists it cannot have been a woman) had a reason for hurtling at 160 kph from the outside lane of the Abu Dhabi-Dubai motorway across the third to the second, and back again, at each stage avoiding another vehicle by a wafer-thin margin.
He wanted, of course, to overtake, and the car blocking him had been travelling at an annoyingly slow speed, perhaps as low as 130 kph. Whether that constitutes a defence in law, or even much by way of mitigation, is another matter. But such encounters do set the thought process going, assuming you are still breathing, let alone thinking. The knee-jerk conclusion is that the driver must be homicidal or mad.
What other kind of man would willingly risk several lives, his own included, to save a few seconds or make a point? But that could be too easy an answer. The driver may, in fact, be the same mixture of good and not-so-good that, to a greater or lesser degree, is probably true of most people. The person who becomes a road hog once seated behind a steering wheel may also be a caring parent, a good provider and kind to the elderly. Conversely, there may be murderers, rapists and thieves who occasionally give way, or observe lane discipline, in traffic.
A likelier explanation, I suspect, is machismo. A certain kind of man gets a thrill out of behaving in a daredevil or hostile fashion. He no more minds being thought an appalling driver than the average English football hooligan is put out by being called a thug. In its advice to visitors and new residents, the Time Out guide to Dubai says the way people drive in the UAE makes it little surprise that the death rate is among the world's highest. After describing some of the more cretinous behaviour - reversing on a roundabout after missing a turning, squeezing past traffic in the same outside lane - it says many expats opt for bulky 4x4s in the hope that they will stand up better than saloon cars in any scrape (I note without comment that the 4x4 that ploughed into a gold-and-white cab near my home the other day came off at least as badly).
Despite Dubai police concerns that parental indulgence equips young men with expensive fast cars but no sense of responsibility, I still believe driving standards generally are not so much worse here than in other countries. And I am sure some westerners acquire not only their 4x4s, but a cavalier disdain for courtesy and safety. That doesn't help much; I am left with the chilling feeling that each journey between two highly civilised cities is a life-threatening experience.
@Email:crandall@thenational.ae