Quickyj

Is it true that to stay safe on the roads in Dubai you need a 4x4??/ by the way, i'm still drunk from last nights Casablanca experience, so expect a lot of random things coming on line...

zamboooka

Its always better to have a 4x4 dude. Drivers in dubai are quite scary!

Border Reiver

To stay safe on the roads in Dubai you need to drive very defensively. A great big 4x4 may make you feel safer but you certainly don't need one.

Inselaffen

Just make sure you have a decent size car. A 4x4 is not necessary.

MataHari

so what do you drive...lol

Eeyore

Lots of expats here buy 4x4s and try and justify it with the "safety" angle, but really it's just because 4x4s are cheap to buy and run here and people like driving around in something the size of a Sherman tank that they probably couldn't afford to run in their home country

4x4s offer a false sense of security and aren't usually inherently safer than "normal" cars - in fact it can be quite the opposite, as 4x4s are very prone to rolling over in accidents, or if you have to swerve at speed... in trying to avoid one accident, you can cause another!

What have we got? Jeep Cherokee that's very nearly paid off

Blue Cat

I had a VW golf for years, great car, but a wagon reversed into me in it when I was pregnant and it freaked me out anyway got that repaired and low and behold it happened again about two weeks later. The driver of the offending wagon told me he didn't see me so it went a journey and I got a RAV4 which I had for three years before I got my Pajero I got the pajero for much the reasons Gareth says - I can afford it and I love it the majority of the people I know all drive 4x4 but there are quite alot of men who have gone for the likes of Audi's and Mercs and Dodges etc. It's down to personal choice at the end of the day but you wouldn't get me in an Echo or a Corolla or such like, not becuase of snob value but because I have seen them after a 4x4 has driven into them

NorthernLad

I had a Lancer hairdryer until I got residency sorted out. It was scary driving that, just not enough acceleration for the roads here.

Getting onto the Arabian Ranches roundabout before the traffic lights were installed caused excessive tightening of ones sphincter.

Same on SZR - it's always nice to have something with a little bit of grunt when trying to avoid the Fancy minibuses.

Blue Cat

I agree, I am not a 'fast' driver as such tend to toddle along and a nice pace, but it is nice to know that I do actually have the power to get out situations if I need to

Eeyore

I've been hearing the "it's nice to have the power to get me out of trouble if I need it" line for about 20 years now, and I always have to ask... when you've been happily driving along, how many times have you suddenly had to react to a potentially dangerous situation by accelerating? How many times by braking? Now, on the basis of that, what's more important - good acceleration or good brakes?

Don't get me wrong, I love powerful cars with big engines, but let's be honest here... unless you've chosen the wrong time to overtake or to pull onto a roundabout, you're more likely to get out of trouble by slowing down than by speeding up

hegazyy9

Power is 4×4

Cham128

actually the torque in my car has stopped me being dead on a number of occasions... roundabouts in particular, but there was also an incident where i was overtaking a lorry and it started to shed it's load... accelerating past it meant i didn't get flattened by it...

but back to the roundabout thing... sometimes its not your fault that some people don't know how to use them, there's even a roundabout near me that's a funny semi-circle shape so you never can tell when people are coming all the way around it or not... not a fan of the big car saftey excuse but i'm a believer in the acceleration one.

more to the point with the price of petrol out there why not buy the car with the biggest engine you can?

I'll take a new camaro thanks

Eeyore

Well... if you have kids, you might be worried about the kind of world they're going to have to cope with, and so be concerned about your carbon footprint...

Cham128

if road users stopped using petrol you'd see a 5% decrease in CO2 emissions... there are bigger polluters than cars to worry about

Eeyore

You're right. Look at the UAE - second most polluting country in the world (per capita), behind Qatar and ahead of Kuwait and Bahrain. America comes in at #5.

Weird to think that each of us here puts more demand on the global ecosystem than anyone in the USA.