Dubai Police implements 5-metre safe distance for anti-tailgating law
The recently-publicised distance-tracking radars on Dubai’s highways went online today to photograph tailgating behaviour by motorists who do not keep a mandatory minimum 5-metre space between vehicles when travelling over 80kph.
Gulf News says the new radars are fitted within the grey tube-shaped Vitronic radars that you may have seen in parts of Dubai before. Earlier, they used to only catch speeders on multiple lanes, but apparently now they will detect tailgating as well.
Cars travelling under 80 kph, for example in a traffic jam, will not be required to keep the safe distance. A 5-metre gap is about one car-length.
Last year, Dubai Police apparently issued 69,964 fines for tailgating and another 19,975 so far this year. There are also undercover as well as marked police cars keeping track of violators.
The newspaper also says that the minimum-distance rule should be 40 metres instead, as in Western countries, which is a massive 8 car-lengths, but that’s only if you want to come to a complete stop in front of a fixed brick wall.
While we agree that the longer the better, in a cluttered highway with aggressive heroes ready to cut in, we’re pretty sure you won’t leave that much of a gap, but we’d say keep at least 20 metres, or 4 car-lengths at 100 kph, as long as you’re paying attention to the road and not browsing the net on your smartphone. Also, if you’re at the receiving end of a tailgater, just move over when it’s safe to do so. You don’t need the headache.
Comments
commander
very old in Riyadh
Jon
If the police were serious about reducing accidents and deaths on the road then they would employ hundreds more staff to view traffic flow cameras. They could even monitor remotely in a country where labour is even cheaper instead of always employing locals. You cannot drive for more than 5 minutes in Dubai without someone pulling out from a side road, not giving way when they are supposed to and of course high performance and 4×4 using their cars to force other drivers to avoid them. Another problem is drivers purposely driving in the wrong lane approaching a junction and then forcing their way in to the straight on lane. Again same as tail gaiting using their cars to force other drivers out of their way.
Mosa
This is a very tricky situation.
Since we are known for having imperfect and extremely annoying drivers, now we will experience a lot of cars SUDDENLY braking to maintain the distance, eventually the rear vehicle getting closer to the car in front – and SNAP! you will be captured.
Is that how its going to be? We are gonna be in a lot of trouble
Ibrahim Alshamsi
Changing lanes now will be much harder since you need to maintain a 5 meter distance, for instance you want to switch to the fast lane and there’s already someone about the same speed as you and is keeping 5 meter clearance between him and the car in front, if there’s someone behind this guys who also have a 5 meter clearance and you decided to switch lanes it would be just impossible to do that without having a ticket !
Because if you switched lanes in between the clearance would be less than 5 meters.
AhmedR
Mash, any news about readers getting ticket or somebody saw someone else getting caught with this new rule? i still saw people tail-gaiting after passing tubes, and some driving even slower than before in 2nd left lane, these people are most annoying, why dont they move/drive in 3rd or 4th lane?
Very old
Its old ,also in uae there is a company have all of this technology in uae .