Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Hallelujah! I may have been saved from an episode of sheer madness that I have been teetering on the edge of for some time.
Most days I managed to keep a lid on my frustration and utter disbelief as fellow drivers whom obviously felt more important than us mere mortals sat in the queue approaching the traffic lights from Mazarea Highway, Al Jasra, illegally ‘off-roaded’ to the top of the queue.
Heaven forbid you inadvertently find yourself trying to exit Hamala or Al Jasra when the mass exodus of drivers, parents and school buses are picking up their children from The British School of Bahrain.
It’s wonderful the school is continually expanding and increasing its pupil numbers but the roads in and out of Hamala and Jasra simply cannot cope. Will anything be done? I doubt it. But at least let me rejoice on the arrival of the yellow cement roadblocks that have been placed strategically along Mazarea Highway to block the self-important, selfish off-road queue jumpers.
No longer will I be sat adjusting my rear view mirror to catch a better look at the approaching culprits as I steer my vehicle as far over to the right as physically possible.
The blasting of my horn has subsided, when, as before, it increased simultaneously with my blood pressure.
On the occasions I had a queue jumper pull up next to me I just had to lower my passenger door window to advise them of their queue jumping error; most, of course, claimed they were rushing to an emergency. My plans of developing a sign on a very long stick to pop out my window quoting ‘GET TO THE BACK OF THE QUEUE!’ have been scuppered.
So, to the person that arranged for the cement roadblocks – shukran, I am forever in your debt! Any chance you might work on getting the traffic lights synchronised?
