DUBAI // A man was flown to hospital with serious injuries from a three-car crash that caused traffic headaches between Abu Dhabi and Dubai this morning.
The accident happened at 6am on Sheikh Zayed Road, heading towards the capital, near Ghantoot.
Dubai Police said the driver of a Mitsubishi pickup truck caused the accident by speeding and not paying attention.
The Pakistani driver was flown to Rashid Hospital in a critical condition with severe injuries and was to undergo surgery on fractures to his arms and legs this afternoon.
Police said he smashed into the back of Toyota Fortuner and flipped his truck on to its side on the hard shoulder of the motorway.
The Fortuner was badly damaged, and an Empost van was also involved in the crash.
Jamie Lamb, who commutes daily from Dubai to the capital, said the crash added an hour and a half to her one-hour drive.
“I’ve been driving this route for three years and this was one of the longer tailbacks I’ve seen,” said Ms Lamb, a business development manager from the US. “There are some that are really bad but this took a lot longer than usual.”
By the time she crept up to the scene of the accident between Jebel Ali and Ghantoot, emergency services had cleared the road.
“We were moving very slowly and would stop for 30 seconds before we’d move for another 30 seconds,” said Ms Lamb, 26.
There were only a few motorists breaking the law by driving on the hard shoulders, which is reserved for emergency services, she said.
Hadeel Al Far, 27, a group accounts manager, was also delayed by the accident but said the cars were taken away by the time she reached the accident site.
Ms Al Far said everyone she knew who took Sheikh Zayed Road to work this morning spent more than two hours in the traffic jam.
eharnan@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Marie Louise Olson and Manal Ismail
