Driven by passion

Full disclosure: I have never in my life driven a car or held a driver's license. The fact that I am a consultant to a television channel entirely devoted to automotive-themed content is due to my experience in the media, not on the highway.

I always claim that media impact is based on emotions. And even I can be mightily moved by footage of the kind embedded below, which conjures up the romance and excitement of speed.


But before getting too carried away with this impressionistic dream of freedom and risk-free daring, there's the urgent need to compare and contrast with the reality of bloody gridlock. Bloody? Accident statistics reveal that there is an accident every two minutes in Dubai. In the UAE there are 21 traffic deaths per 100,000 people, compared to 15 in the United States and around six in Britain (2005 figures). Gridlock? Every single fender bender causes a huge traffic jam, costing the economy dearly in terms of time wasted. What is disheartening is the fact that there seems to be no solution to the problem, as it involves so many interlinked causes.