Venting - driving in Doha
In these last 2 months, after living in Doha for over 5 years and driving on the road for almost 4, I have had my worst experiences so far.
The first time I was stopping at a traffic signal. Car was dirty because I had to park it all day in the sun. Used wipers. It seems a bit of dust made it to this Jetour behind me. The guy lost it, started flashing, opened the windows, kept harassing me as the traffic lights went green and everyone was driving. He came in front of me, blocked me then came to the side and threw a bottle of water in my face when I tried to have a polite conversation and say it wasn’t intentional. At the time I wasn’t even aware that he was angry because I wiped my car’s front windows!
And he happens to wear Gulf traditional clothing. I love Qatar, and some of my kindest interactions ever are with Qataris - so my intention here isn’t to generalise.
The second interaction was a couple of days ago. I’m driving into my lane on the highway leading to an exit. This Range Rover suddenly drives into my lane, almost hits my car, did NOT signal. I wouldn’t have been able to give way even if I wanted to. He almost collided but I narrowly escaped being hit by increasing my speed. He goes after me, flashing and beeping. Then goes in front of me, blocks my pathway then rolls down the window, my heart literally sank. Then shows up a lady in black abaya (probably middle-aged) into the lane next to me. I roll down the window to try and understand what she needs but she goes in front of me to block me but I basically took the next right when she wouldn’t let me through and she had to keep going straight.
I got home then kept asking myself if i did anything wrong. Then I go to check if my car and her have hit but not a scratch! So why did this even need to happen to begin with!!