Driving in Qatar is a favorite topic of conversation always! The increase in traffic when the temperature dropped, the expats returned from holiday and Ramadan was over was scary. I heard at coffee one morning that I would be really surprised as how the traffic escalated as soon as school started! Surprise is not the word – total astonishment is a better term.

When expats land in Doha and begin car shopping – bigger is better, bigger is safer and bigger is harder to park. The SUV sales that are supposedly winding down in the states show no signs of slowing here. Gas is cheap and it is always better to be looking down at other drivers when one is honking in the roundabouts than looking at huge bald truck tires six inches to the right.

There are three lanes in most roundabouts. Right hand turns (my personal favorite in the US) are made from the inside lane. Yes, you read that correctly – the driver on the inside lane is allowed to put on his right turn signal – or not – and make right hand turns across two lanes of traffic. The center lane driver is planning to pass a turn or two before he leaves the roundabout or he can click an indicator and go right whenever he suddenly realizes that is where he should be going. The center lane is not the place to be if you are not completely sure which turn you would like to make, as you need six sets of eyes to keep up with all of the sudden decisions being made around you. The right hand lane is the easiest and feels the most comfortable until you realize that you are only supposed to turn right at the very next turn from this lane so your destination options are limited.

U-turns are called backwards turns and are very common. It helps to be in the left hand turning lane and to have a car with a very tight turning radius. But that doesn’t seem to be necessary – any lane will do.

Left hand turns are interesting too! Salwa Road has two left turn lanes at one intersection and at any given time – three cars turn left – two from the properly marked turn lanes and one from the lane with the obvious arrow pointing straight. The far right lane has an exit from a shopping center just short of the intersection so drivers (always in very large autos) will pull slowly out and indicate with a flippant wave that they are going to cross over and turn left. They never make eye contact. They just go steadily on their way amid much cussing and hand waving by the other drivers. They really don’t care – they just want to turn left. So they do.

Right hand turns are not as simple as in most places. If an SUV is too far back and doesn’t want to wait – the sidewalk is always an option. Or driving up and over the sidewalk, forcing ones way into traffic on the frontage road to cut in queue and be the first to turn at the right corner. They just want to be first. Even if there is nowhere to go!

Drivers here come from all over the world and I think some are hired as drivers without the driver’s education classes required elsewhere. Some of the young men look as frightened as I am and clutch their steering wheels as they drive small pickups directly into the line of fire. Interestingly, there are thousands of the same Nissan pick up trucks with the same flame design on the sides and they all have Indian drivers that are either fearless or nuts. “Nison” (as in Nixon) is the correct pronunciation of ‘Nissan’ here. We thought there was a new make of car for a few days when a friend was talking about buying one.

People that drive here seem a little more relaxed about the driving than those of us who learned to drive somewhere that actually had traffic laws. The symbol for patience - hand extended palm up with fingers gathered is used quite often – frequently by the person edging out in front of you with so many dents in his car that you realize immediately that he doesn’t care if you run into him.

The local Qatari drivers in national dress always seem to be in a hurry but the westerners always seem the most stressed. Speed is so important in this tiny country – high-end sports cars speed along until nearing speed camera – slow for a minute so there is no flash and then fly off towards the desert.

Porsches, Lamborghinis, Aston Martins, Ferraris all have dealerships here and do quite the business. The dilemma for these beautiful cars is the speed humps – not a typo, speed bumps merely mean slow down for the real thing in a few meters – a hump is huge. Low slung cars almost have to stop to crawl over these things and many drivers simply drive up on the sidewalks to avoid them.

After a few years of running errands here in the land of the beige, I will reach a level of patience never expected. My time management skills will be totally gone as there is no sense whatsoever as to how long it will take to do anything. I will have given up all attempts at list making and will have learned to spend the afternoons reading!