Want to escape traffic fines? Keep tabs on your brakes and don’t rely on hearsay.
Abu Dhabi Police have quashed rumours that speed limits on certain roads have been revised. They announced on their official Facebook page: “Abu Dhabi Police denies what is being circulated via social media about abolishing speed margin in Abu Dhabi.”
Most roads in Abu Dhabi have a grace margin that allows drivers to exceed the speed limit by upto 20 kmph. For instance, on roads where the posted limit may be 120 kmph, you can accelerate till 140 kmph, before the radar flashes.
According to statistics released by the Traffic and Patrols Directorate of Abu Dhabi Police in May last year, 1,837 motorists were caught driving over 200 kmph on the roads of Abu Dhabi.
Brigadier Hussain Al Harthi, Director-General of Central Operations in Abu Dhabi Police, said that the number of fatalities on Abu Dhabi roads dramatically increased in the first three months of 2016, compared to the first three months of 2015, with over 489 road accidents.
Similar rumours have been doing the rounds for Dubai roads claiming that the 20 kmph window of radar flash has been done away with.
Research on Dubai Police website yielded that no such changes have been made to speed limits.
However, what has changed on the roads is that some radars have become “friendlier”. Instead of flashing after the driver exceeds the 20 km/hr window, these radars send out a warning flash when they find that a driver is about to go beyond the grace window. Therefore, don’t worry if you are driving at 118 km/hr on a road that has a 100 km/hr speed limit and you are flashed by a radar.