The Big Sombrero - Kuwait

I know I have been remiss in posting. No excuse except that I am dead tired all the time. The surge has never ended and now it is part of the landscape. We have met the challenge and done evrything we needed to but it has taken its toll on us all. We are all tired right now.

I'm really looking forward to Memorial Day because we get a holiday and can take it 14 days either side of the holiday. I will take it as early as I can so I can just sleep in and do nothing for a day.

The other day I was driving to the northern end of the country on the 6th Ring Road and saw how far they have come on constructing the new Kuwaiti National Stadium. It has a fabric roof that makes it look like a sombrero. Sort of like the stadium in Tampa Bay but with a roof.

The Kuwaitis say that they are trying to promote tourism and this is one of their steps. It will take more than this, A stadium without beer stands is just not going to attract a huge influx of fans. Then again, there are constant rumors that just any day they are going to begin restricted alcohol sales but I don't see it happening. The way that Islam is becoming more and more strident I can't see the Kuwaitis loosening up on those laws.

Cars and Dumb Drivers - The Results

I see these crashed vehicles all the time. I never have stopped to take photos before but this one was located on a fairly remote site and off the beaten path. How the hell three cars could be involved out here in the middle of nothing just boggles my mind.

Kuwait is infamous for it's horrific car crashes. The combination of high Speed Limits (120 KPH = 75 MPH) lots of high performance cars, bad drivers, zero law enforcement, and terrible weather conditions leads to the worst accident record in the world.

I see the aftermath of these crashes every day. Unlike the US they don't just whisk the cars away after the accident. They leave them in place for weeks as reminders. It seems to me to be counterproductive at times as it leads me to believe that they are just trying to find new ways to wreck the vehicles.

I drove up on this mess the other morning and stopped to get these shots. This was a three car collision and the black car (or what is left of the black car) seems to have gotten the worst of the deal. This is at a U-Turn on one of the main highways.

The black car leaning on the light post was on the left side of the road and these two cars were on the right side. You can see a metallic blue sedan in the foreground and a white sedan further back. The cars are left right where they stopped or are just towed off the road and left there unitl a Detective arrives to investigate. Yep, a Detective. It seems that there is so much litigation involving foreign drivers and Kuwaitis that they assign Detectives to this. It does not take long here to figure out that the whole process is thinly designed Wasta. (Wasta being "Influence".) If you have Wasta it is always the other persons fault. What this really translates to is that the foreigner is always at fault.

Notice the stickers all over the car. Those are placed by all the different agencies who have to investigate the accident and there are color codes. I don't know what they mean but I am trying to find out. There is a website out there that a Kiwi places these car crash photos on. He has made a hobby out of this.Looking at this one I get the feeling that some one is having a very bad Christmas. Not that Christmas means a damn thing over here.