So it was boredom all along

Of course. And here I was, thinking most Arab drivers didn’t have a brain. In an otherwise neat story (Saudis race all night, fueled by boredom), an anthropologist tells the writer, “They are mostly young Bedouins who recently moved to the city, and whose lives are marked by suffering and self-destructive behavior”.

Erm, not exactly. I’ll tell ya what’s wrong with these gits. In Arab countries, driving is to a man what shopping is to a woman. You can’t do anything else. So the boredom bit is right. And self-destructive more or less nails it. Here’s how it panned out back in my time: in Dubai, the authorities had to ask people not to steer their car with their feet. Sit back and take it in. Their feet were on the wheel. On the wheel. On the highway. Where the upper limit of 120 kmph is a minor inconvenience. I get the heebie-jeebies just recalling the last time I saw an Arab leaning back with a coke in his hands, a leg on the dash and another on the wheel. He was in my rear view mirror, honking with his heel. Not boredom. Just empty.