Take a look at this photo and see if you can see what’s wrong with it!…
If you’re like me, you won’t see ‘it’.
What’s the price for not seeing it? 1,000 dirhams. That’s £175 or US$270.
What do I mean?
There’s a parking offence being committed in the photo with a 1,000 dirham fine.
Me not realising this one dark night taught me an expensive lesson a few months ago!
Click here to reveal/hide what the offence is. [slide] The sign with the red circle and red ‘x’ in the middle means ‘No Parking’. So that middle car is parking illegally.[/slide]
One morning I went out shopping to pick a few up a few things from Daiso (see separate post), across the road from the Choithrams supermarket, and Al Noor Hospital. All the parking slots were full… apart from one – so I grabbed it. It was dark, but I did see the red sign. However I thought, “Nar, I’m sure my car will be fine here”, and walked into Daiso. I came back 10 minutes later to find a slip of paper, all in Arabic, under my windscreen wiper.
You may or may not know that all driving and parking fines can be reduced by 50% if you ask for this reduction when you go to pay your fine.
You can do this in Abu Dhabi or Al Ain.
Any fines you get in Dubai you have to pay in Dubai, and you cannot negotiate the fines down.
So I paid 500 dirhams a couple of days after I committed the offence.
I should have known better as I’d learned all the signs a month earlier at the Driving School (again see separate post)! So I hope this article saves at least one ex-pat from a 500AED fine over the next year!
Well…I would’ve missed it if I were still in the UAE but here in Canada, every step is crucial as we worry as tax payers too so it’s kind of hard to miss these signs. Talk about women being bad drivers. Toronto is a nightmare when it comes to parking especially in downtown.
I was dinged once for parking at the wrong spot outside a nightclub on a Saturday night in TO.