Here There and Everywhere

Adventures in Driving: Kuwait

I found this great road, 303, that goes all the way from Mishref to Fehaheel. It is a little slower than 30 (Fehaheel Expressway) or 40, with more stop lights, but I like it because it is like a European boulevard, several lanes in each direction, divided with a barrier, and it has a lot of public art – cool and interesting sabilles (the places put up for the people passing by to drink water) and all kinds of models of ships. It’s a nice drive.

(i am discovering that there are several of these roads in Kuwait; you just have to find them. If you always take the same route, you can miss some amazing sights.)

I was stopped by police checks twice, whipping out my freshly legal driver’s licence. At the second stop, every vehicle was stopped – except for the ATV with two boys on it that got on who got on somewhere in the south and went all the way to Mishref. The first I saw them was when they went whizzing by me at the second police check.

That’s them, over to the right, by the sign, with another car behind them. It wasn’t easy to get their photo because they were really hauling. Their little ATV was going faster than any of the cars on the road, and they didn’t bother stopping for red lights, or police checks.

I didn’t think those things had that much power. But I am also wondering why, when the police saw them, they didn’t stop the boys? These kids had no business being on a highway, no licenses, no helmuts, no protective clothing, on a vehicle going as fast as an average car. And they weren’t that easy to see – it was dusk. To their credit, they stayed in the right lane, and they did look both ways before going through the red lights.

I was amazed at how fast that little thing went.

April 20, 2007 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Community, Cross Cultural, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Lumix, Photos