Tuesday, July 03, 2007

My Salik day

I woke up this morning dreading the traffic on my way to work. I debated whether I should take an alternate route through the Lakes. It's a longer road but would probably take less time and cause less stress.

But as I got out of my underground parking, I quickly scanned the roads and noticed that there did not seem to be any unusual traffic activity. So I opted to take my usual route, and got to work in 10 minutes. Weird.

The drive home was not bad at all either. I left work at 7:30PM and got home around 15 minutes later. I decided to go buy my Salik tag since I have to cross the Barsha toll gate tomorrow for a client meeting...and it was about time I got it anyway. I can't ignore Salik much longer.

So I head to the Eppco station next to my house, and they tell me that they do not have any tags left. Apparently they've been asking for new tags for a few days now, but they haven't received any.

Fine. So I head to another Eppco station across the road, and they do not have any either. Great!

I decide to drive down the beach road, in search of the next petrol station. I find another small Eppco station, and I'm convinced that they do not have any Salik tags. But they do. Success! Or so I thought. They needed a copy of my car registration card, which I had (for once, I had done my homework!). But apparently they needed a photocopy of the front AND back. Crappola! They do not have a photocopy machine, so I decide to u-turn to try the station across the street.

There were two stations on the other side of the street. The first one had Salik tags but no photocopy machine. The second one has tags AND a photocopy machine. Five petrol stations later, my quest for Salik was finally succesful! And you know what? They did not need a copy of the back of my registration card...

3 comments:

KJ said...

Things are getting back to normal now that everyone is buying the tags.

My trips always take 1.5 hours, a total of 3 hours driving per day. On the first two days of Salik, my return trip only took me 20 minutes. Felt great while it lasted

Ammaro said...

I've been watching this Salik situation go down even though i'm not currently in Dubai. I pretty much think its a good idea, although the way it was pushed out looks like it wasn't fully thought through (not enough tags, alternate routes not completed etc). A step forward I guess, but not without casualties!

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