Chris Saul's Blog

Thursday October 15, 2009

Poor cabbies

Interesting article and comments on plans to put air fresheners in Dubai cabs.

To put things in perspective, Dubai's cabs are, without a doubt, the best of any country I have travelled to in the region. Generally beautifully maintained, new cars, working AC, clean, etc.

Driving standards are vastly better than they used to be. Despite the odd bad apple, the guys seem to drive fairly well these days. Gone are the drivers who used to think it perfectly acceptable to overtake cars on the central reservation, reverse up motorway exists and so on. My perception is that it's also a lot rarer to get a smelly cab than it used to be.

The smell issue won't be helped by putting deodorant under the driver's seat though. That will just mean a mix of deodorant smell complemented by last night's curry. Yuck. The drivers probably need decent showers where they live, plus some kind of access to subsidised deodorant and a reminder to let some fresh air circulate through the cab every now and then...