No tailgating please, I'm new!

I am beginning to believe that lots of people in Dubai are either in a tearing hurry to get somewhere or tend to procrastinate leaving home, and hence, have to rush to get to their destination on time, lol. Nothing else offers an explanation for the lack of patience on the roads :-)

Of course, I am completely guilty of adding to their impatience being a new driver, who is clueless about the roads and directions :-((

The signage on the road is fabulous and I can, by and large, find my way, but it fazes me completely, when suddenly from the left most lane, I am expected to switch to the right most lane to get somewhere! It will take some time before I figure which lane to keep to facilitate easy change - I completely understand, it must be an irritant on the road, but I am sure everyone is new to the roads at some point in time, lol!

To cut a long story short, I have decided to print out a huge sign and put it up on my rear window or the rear boot door that explicitly states" I am a new driver, some patience please"!!

Or better still, UAE RTA should add one more process to their procedure for getting a license (unless of course you're privileged to get a conversion straight away), and, insist that each new license holder have a different colour number plate, which can be changed to a regular number plate after a pre-agreed timeframe, lol!

Maybe, just maybe then, no one will tailgate me, or honk me, or speed up every time I hesitate as I try and change lanes, sigh!

P.S. My wonderful notice, all printed and ready, has suffered an early demise. It appears that anything that has not adorned the car when it left the manufacturer, needs the RTA approval. After having done rounds of government offices for my mom-in-law's residency visa, I dont think I want to deal with another government office, well not as yet!   

The final chapter in the saga of my license!

I think a driving license in Dubai and me are a bizarre connection or basically I am paying for my past sins! Read, terrible language usage :-)

Took my second road test on Thursday. Strangely enough the one other lady who was to appear for the test, decided not to, so it was just my nemesis, a chinese lady and me in the car!

She looks at my learning permit, and as I am about to exit the parking, yells stop! I brake, wondering what was it that I was about to hit, mentally ticking one negative on her chart - brakes suddenly, does not observe - oh heck! Remembering my last test, I reach for the hazard lights when she negates that with a dismissive shake of her head. I breathe a sigh of relief! I am safe, hopefully..

"Is this your permit?", she asks narrowing her eyes, as she looks me up and down rather carefully.

"Huh?' I am completely foxed, wondering if she's lost it. She just took my driving test last week with the same permit and signed it as well. I am convinced, by the way, that she signed it only to remind her that I had done something to offend her (remember the expletive) cos as per driving instructor, the assessors usually sign only the assessment sheet and not the permit.

"Is this your photograph or your sister's?" she asks again, shaking her head at my lack of response.

'Huh?" I am convinced that one of us has lost it and am pretty sure its not me, "I don't have a sister in Dubai."

"Your daughter?" she asks piercingly, trying to look through my pretense, if any.

"Daughter?" now I am seriously offended. Either she seriously thinks the me in the photo was my daughter or she was being offensive. In which case it was working, I was starting to feel a tad offended! "No, that's my photograph".

"I am sorry but I cannot take test. I need to check identity" she starts to get out of the car. I am convinced this is God's way of punishing me for some thing that I had done. Then she thought better of it and sat back, 'do you have any identity with you?"

I fumble in my bag and fish out my passport and hand it to her, willing to throttle someone, anyone.. I can't go through the waiting agony of yet another road test :-(

"Hmm..." she mumbles as she checks my passport against the learning permit. "You've become fat" she pronounces as she closes the passport and hands it back to me.

I am not sure if I want to tell her "yes, thank you I am painfully aware of the fact" or clobber her for her frank observations, lol!  Political correctness? Hah, what animal is that?


While I am still wondering she follows it with "you were so pretty, why did you become fat?" I am still struggling to find a suitable retort to that when "I think you should loose weight. Not to look good but its very important for health". While I absorb that homily, she asks me to start. She is actually quite chatty and tells me that last week a mother & daughter duo registered with the school, tried to swap places with the mother trying to take the daughter's test. Terrible I agree, but I am still smarting at the thought of a 1 year old photograph being thought of as my daughter!

Clearly, wake up call - I need to have a good look in the mirror, and do something about my weight! Or most importantly time to get rid of that lying mirror - farewell good friend!


Though I am not sure if she has a good memory and was getting back at me for last time :-) - if indeed that, then game, set and match to her!

But despite all of that excitement and confusion, I did pass my driving test, and she actually smiled at me and told me I was very good! While I am still smarting fro her rather candid observations, I am a much relieved holder of a driver license!

Driving schools in Dubai

Was commiserating with a fellow license aspirant - we were both drowning our sorrows in some gorgeous Mango melbafrom Hagen Daz - when one of our friends told us that he was not surprised that we both flunked our test, The trick was to go to a smaller driving school! According to him, big ones like Emirates Driving Institute are overbooked, and, statistically therefore, have a higher rate of fails! I am not sure how true his logic is but the next day even my rented car driver told me that I should have gone to Al Ahli cos they are smaller and faster! Reminiscent of the famous Avis tag line "we try harder"?

Which set me wondering how many driving schools there are in Dubai esp since R (despite being here for 6 months) has not started his classes? It seemed a good idea to do a comparison and see how the different institutes stack up!

It appears that teaching people to drive or rather get a license is a fairly lucrative business :-) cos a city like Dubai has 5 driving institutes!


1. Emirates Driving School ( http://www.edi-uae.com/) Established in 1991, as per their website, the largest and most successful in the Middle East. And listed as well I believe. According to my friend, it therefore enhances the pressure on them to have repeat tests, lol! But seriously in course of calls to decide which school, I found them the only school that was all there instead of all over the place!
Contact : 04-2631100

2. Belhasa Driving Centre ( http://www.bdc.ae/) Established in 2001, the second largest and the same business family as Emirates Driving School! Cousins I believe! Don't bother to call on the number listed on the website; they will only redirect you to the number listed below. Why this number is not listed as the "to call" number completely escapes me but then I am not running the company or the website! The course fees page has been "under construction" for the last 3 months, lol!

Contact: 04-3519099

3. GaladhariDriving Institute (http://www.gmdc.ae/) Established in 2004, it belongs to the Galadhari business family, it too claims to be the largest and most successful driving school in Dubai :) Someone needs to tell EDI and Galadhari that there can only be one "largest'!
Contact: 04-2676166


4. Dubai Driving Centre http://www.dubaidrivingcenter.net/
Established in 2003, as per its website, it’s a leading driving school in Dubai :-) but I must mention, they were the most unresponsive. The centre took a day to just call me back with details while the others responded when I called them. On top of that the person at the other end was all at sea when I asked her for charges! While she gave me some figures, I would take them with a fistful of salt, she had no clue what she was talking about!
Contact: 04- 3455855


5. Al AhliDriving Centre (http://www.alahlidubai.ae). A part of the Bujsaim& Al Ahli group, it was founded in 1980,and therefore predates EDI, but from what I understand from general conversation with people, it’s still the smallest. However, I have also heard that because of its smaller size, you start your classes earlier and get your license faster than you do with any of the other institutes.. but that's something one would only know after an actual experience!
Contact: 04 - 3411500

I did a comparative cost analysis since R was going to do classes and it’s quite funny how cost differs under each head, though by and large ball park the cost will not be too different, give take a few hundred Dirhams! The VIPclass charges are the ones which are the weirdest - the range is huge from Dhs 125 to Dhs 325! But what completely flummoxed me was the maximum number of classes you can do in a week! There are schools which charge you more for shift and you do lesser number of classes / week, huh? Now who in their right mind will pay higher charges to do lesser number of classes? Sounds bizarre! And then there was Belhasa which seems to do a garage and hill test for automatic which no other school does! According to them this is a RTA requirement which clearly bypassed all other schools :-)

Given below is a comparative chart! Hope it’s useful! But best to check with the schools once again cos they run special promotions on the prices!

OTHER CHARGES	GALADHARI	EDI	AHLI	DUBAI DRIVING	BELHASA
File Opening	360	400	460	930	575
Eye Test	100	100	100		100
Typing	30	20	30
Handbook	50		60		70
Simulator test		100
Mock test		50
Theory Test	260	260	230	230	230
Lecture Charges	300	490	300	320	300
Parking Test	50	100	50	70	100
Hill test					50
Garage test					50
Assessment	100	150	100	100	100
Road Test	250	260	250	250	250
Certifiate	300	150	220
License		210		270	335
learning permit	120		110
Service charge			100
Total	1920	2290	2010	2170	2160
PER CLASS COST	GALADHARI	EDI	AHLI	DUBAI DRIVING	BELHASA
Regular	50	55	55	50	60
Shift	60	100	80	65	100
Friday	75	105	75	65	80
VIP	150	325	125	150	150
TOTAL COST (AUTOMATIC)	GALADHARI	EDI	AHLI	DUBAI DRIVING	BELHASA
Regular - 40 classes	3920	4490	4210	4170	4560
Regular - 20 classes	2920	3390	3110	3170	3360
Shift - 40 classes	4320	6290	5210	4770	6160
Shift - 20 classes	3120	4290	3610	3470	4160
Friday - 40 classes	4920	6490	5010	4770	5360
Friday - 20 classes	3420	4390	3510	3470	3760
VIP - 40 classes	7920	15290	7010	8170	8160
VIP - 20 classes	4920	8790	4510	5170	5160
MAXIMUM CLASSES / WEEK	GALADHARI	EDI	AHLI	DUBAI DRIVING	BELHASA
Regular	6	8	12		6
Shift	20	12	12		6-8
Friday	4	4	24		10-12,  14-16 *
VIP	24	24	4		4
* depending on whether you pay 150 or 200 per class for VIP
Complementary pick-up from home	No	Yes	No	No	No

The never ending saga of my driving license

Just came back from my driving test, which not surprisingly, I flunked L

I had a bath, didn’t wear a mini skirt, remembered not to apply any smelly hair oil and most certainly don’t have body odour, but alas, I still failed!

A motor bike suddenly decided to speed out from behind a massive trailer turning away from me, which I of course completely omitted to anticipate! Darn the motorbikes, why can’t they be bigger? Darn the trailers for not being transparent! And I think it’s terribly unfair that Superman can see through Louis Lane’s dresses to see the colour of her innerwear but I can’t see through trailers to see a mobike!  And this, after waiting for over a minute for the straight traffic to pass me! Grump!

As if I hadn’t done enough to ensure that the assessor failed me, my frustration with my stupidity manifested itself in an instinctive expletive, which I think took a moment to register with everyone, including me. Almost as if in slow motion, I could hear an audible gasp from my fellow assessees, while the examiner looked at me for a while before asking me in a rather dangerous tone “What did you just say?” I am not sure who was more horrified (albiet for different reasons I am sure) she or me!

The expletive was a reaction, directed at myself, and while I was really tempted to apologise for the slip, I wasn't quite sure how she'd react if I did!

Mercifully, there are millions of words that rhyme with my rather crass judgement, and, Scrabble came to my rescue! Alas my fate was sealed! 8 more classes (I think I like the classes a lot more than the final test) and yet another test, sigh!

Not to mention a rather resigned, “never mind, we’ll buy the car next week” that I know I am going to hear J. R is at home today. Normally, if I as much as squeak into the room, he winces and grumbles in his sleep. Today, I made a lot of noise, hoping he would wake up and commiserate with me – not a squeak out of him!

Have friends from out of town coming over for dinner tonight. I think I will drown my sorrows in a bottle of wine or better still in a huge decadent tub of ice-cream with a large slice of an apple pie! Sob!

Final road test

"You know you are beginning to look like you suffer from an acute case of OCD" my husband grinned as I picked at my food at the dinner table, " stop obsessing about your test!".

Now I am not what you call shy at the table but its this final road test for my license that's looming up tomorrow that seems to have taken away my appetite. I now fully, and, completely appreciate why someone could park the car on the pavement in a road test. I stand, duly chastised, for that one indulgence of amusement that I afforded myself at someone else's expense!

While R thinks its OK to flunk it, I can have another go, its somehow important that I get it in the first go. Maybe not having work targets anymore, I have subconsciously adopted this is my next assignment :-)

Of course, it doesn't help that both he and my son look at cars on the net, discuss buying something, and then sigh in mock despair "of course we could if only you would..."

Stop! that's putting a lot of pressure on me,folks! I feel like I am back at the bank, attending Monday morning huddles, while a raspy voice over the conference call, enquires if I think I will end the year achieving my revenue targets or not! A perfectly good coffee ruined by that conference call, grump!

And a perfectly good dinner wasted by the road test!