Squabble

I've been in Dubai for 3 months, my wife and I bought a car a month ago, am I the only :curse:ing idiot who's been driving without a tag.

I was aware of the tag but thought it would be a relatively small fine, not the 10,000 AED we now have to pay. Why is it they allow you to merrily rack up a fortune and not try to notify you?

If it's this much, why isn't this :curse:ing explained, why don't they :curse:ing issue them with rego, why do they have 2 :curse:ing smiling faces on their bus adds as though a salik tag is a nice-to-have rather than the :curse:ing knee capping it is. At least the mafia dress menacing.

NOTE TO SALIK MARKETING:
100 the first, 200 the second and 400 EVERY time after that.
Put that on the side of your :curse:ing bus and I guarantee you'll increase the sign-up rate.

lionheart

Why on earth would you want to go under the toll bridge without having bought a salik tag? Its so easy and cheap...sorry to say so, but it's reassuring that those of you who try and get away with it, at the expense of those of us who pay, eventually fail in the long run.

Spugsy

oh bollocks, AED 10,000?

Ouchya.

Squabble

Phew, thanks Lion Heart, your response has assured me I’m not the only idiot.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't trying to "get away" with anything.

Emerald_Eyes

Increase the sign up rate? It's not supposed to be optional, you have to pay for the Salik toll if you're going to use it and as you've found out if you don't you'll get fined! Quite straightforward really. Can't believe you thought otherwise

W10

Did it not occur to you to find out what the penalties were? Being as you were going under a toll (ie - you knew you would be fined for doing it without a tag)

Unfortunately it seems you were trying 'to get away' with something as you did deliberately drive through a toll road repeatedly.

But....ouch indeed!!!

Squabble

Exactly, then why make it optional, increase rego by 100 and hand 'em out.

Why advertise on buses as though they are optional?

Write on the bus "Salik in mandatory".

lionheart

You obviously don't grasp the principle of the toll system. The idea is that, if you don't want to pay, then you simply travel via the Business Bay Bridge or similar alternative routes. If it was mandatory, everyone would use the salik route!

typical

Plus if they handed them out, they'd presumably not have any credit on them... so you'd have to go to the petrol station anyway, to load it up

(It DOES annoy me that topping them up is such a pain in the arse though, and that payments don't process for 24 hours. Grrr, it's totally electronic!)

Saj786

I guess a salik tag is something you top-up which then allows you to use toll roads? A bit like that sun-pass stuff in Florida? please fill me in

Do you have to have a salik tag or do you have the option of paying cash at the tolls?

Eeyore

If you're signed up to Salik, they *do* notify you, by SMS

Otherwise, it's like every other traffic offence here... you have to check up yourself at the Dubai Police website. If you don't, you can have a nasty surprise when you go to re-register your car; a colleague of mine didn't know that he'd been snapped running a red light, so when he went to re-register they impounded his car for a month. Literally took it off him there and then.

Inselaffen

its a tag you stick in your windscreen, 4 dhs is deducted when you pass under the toll gates. there is no cash option

admon

Sorry but one word.. Biscuit.

The wife doesnt have salik on her car, as she really only tootles about between home, work and the shops. But if she knows she is going anywhere near Salik gates, she takes my car instead.

The fact that you have gone under a massive road filling tollgate 25 times before wondering about paying just says it all.. a little like walking out of Spinneys with a shopping trolley full of food and then claiming ''well nobody told me I have to pay''.

Standard requirements for adulthood in this big world include common sense.

MataHari

oh my how funny is all this...remind me never to ask for sympathy on here, ever...

jrudofsky

But sympathy for this why? He has admited he was aware of the tag, but assumed it would be a small fine?! ie. the implication being he knew he was doing wrong?

You get a parking fine, you can ignore it and it goes up....but generally a one off offence, repeatedly driving under salik gates is serial offences?!

Harsh (and a lot of cash), but fair unfortunately.