Frogger ... the Middle East road game that pays

For those of you who are old enough, no explanation of Frogger is required. For the younger crowd:

Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981.

The player starts with three frogs (lives). The player guides a frog which starts at the bottom of the screen. The lower half of the screen contains a road with motor vehicles, which in various versions include cars, trucks, buses, vans, taxis, bicyclists, and/or motorcycles, speeding along it horizontally. The upper half of the screen consists of a river with logs, alligators and turtles, all moving horizontally across the screen. The very top of the screen contains five "frog homes" which are the goals for each frog. Every level is timed; the player must act quickly to finish each level before the time expires.

The player must successfully guide the frog between opposing lanes of trucks, cars, and other vehicles, to avoid becoming roadkill.

I was recently in Muscat with my friend who was visiting from Canada. We stayed at the home of some friends of friends who moved to Muscat around the same time I moved to Dubai and the conversation turned to the differences and similarities between Oman and UAE from the common perspective of Canadian ex-pats (in fact fellow Calgarians woot woot!) One of the questions that arose is if I had seen "Frogger"? Indeed I had although I had not heard it referred to by that name. An amusing (but appropriate) label for a common occurrence.

An Example of Middle East "Frogger"

Sheikh Zayed Road is a busy 5 to 6 lane freeway that runs basically through the middle of Dubai. Speed limit is 120 km per hour, merely a suggestion although the multitude of speed cameras strongly encourages motorists to abide by this. Traffic in Dubai has improved in recent months however SZR can still be pretty hairy, especially at peak times.

Two weeks ago, I was on my way to meet my Canadian guest at Mall of the Emirates after work for some typical Mall activities ... shopping, dinner, more shopping ... and was cruising down SZR with the flow of traffic. Suddenly, a car in the next lane jams on his brakes ... and then everyone behind him ... and then the truck in front of me ... ahhhhh!!! Somehow disaster was averted and there was not a multi-car pile up!

I couldn't see right away what was causing such havoc but as I got closer ... two south-Asian "froggers"!!! They had succeeded in crossing lanes 1 and 2 (which was my lane) but lane 3 was proving to be fast and congested. So there they stood, in the middle of Sheikh Zayed Road during rush hour. As I whizzed past them, one of the froggers even stepped out of the path of another car but in doing so, stepped into the path of other oncoming traffic ... ME!

I honestly don't know where they thought they were going because even if they made it across all 5 lanes, the median between south-bound traffic and north-bound is a meter-high concrete barrier with a 6-foot steel fence and then another 6 lanes of hair-raising traffic minus the logs, alligators and turtles! Good luck with that one, boys! But other than a minor heart attack, the rest of the trip was uneventful (for me anyway, can't say as I stuck around to see what happened to the froggers.)

Blood money

In relaying the story to Jenn at the mall, she asked me about blood money. I had read that if the victim of a traffic accident was proven to be doing something stupid (like crossing a 5-lane freeway during rush hour), the blood money thing was null and void.

This from the Gulf News:

According to the Sharia, if one causes the death or injury of another person accidentally or intentionally, he or she has to pay blood money or diya. The blood money is to be paid to the victim's family as compensation and the amount is given in accordance with Sharia.

The blood money will only be payable if the person who caused the death of another person is found guilty under criminal procedure or legally responsible for committing a wrongful act, offence or crime.

According to Sharia, the life of a Muslim is evaluated for a larger amount of blood money than people of other religions, faiths or ethnic groups. But in the UAE the blood money is Dh200,000 for all males residing the country, whatever their religion or nationality.

The Sharia grants the family of a female, half the amount for a male, which is Dh 100,000. However, it is left to the judge who is in charge of the case to decide the amount of the blood money.

It was a comforting thought that as a law-abiding motorist, blood money is not automatically awarded because, as in the incident above, the "froggers" clearly have no regard for their own safety. And I would venture to say that some of them do it in the hopes of being "sacrificed" in order to provide for their families. For some of these low-paid, exploited workers making a few hundred dirhams a month, 200K dirhams goes a very long way back in their home country. Sadly they are worth more as road-kill than as un-skilled labour and the courts seem to be more swift in awarding funds due than some of the employers of these workers.

However, my relief in thinking that Sharia Law was fair and just when it comes to blood money was short lived as I read a news article in today's newspaper 7Days:

No jail for Grams

A woman who ran over and killed an Indian worker as he tried to cross one of Dubai’s busiest highways has been banned from driving.

Mum-of-three Sandra Grams, 54, hit the pedestrian when he ran out in front of her on Sheikh Zayed Road on March 18. Yesterday Dubai Traffic Court ordered her to pay dhs150,000 in blood money, a dhs5,000 fine and gave her a six-month driving ban.

Grams, who was on her way home from her office in Abu Dhabi at the time of the accident, said: “It’s a great relief that it’s over but the six-month ban is a bit of a shock.

“My conscious is clear bec-ause I was not speeding, I was not on my mobile and I was concentrating. The man ran into the side of my car and there was nothing I could do.”

The maximum penalty for causing wrongful death of a pedestrian is three years in prison, a dhs30,000 fine and deportation for an expatriate.

The Head of Dubai Traffic Prosecution, Salah Bu Farou-sha, said: “The judge thinks that the man has some responsibility because he crossed from a non-authorised place so the blood money became dhs150,000 instead of the usual dhs200,000.”

Bu Farousha also said the prosecution would consider appealing the verdict.

Grams, who has lived in Dubai for almost 30 years, wants to contact the victim’s family and offer support.

She said: “I think about him and his family all the time. A traffic accident is one thing but a fatality is something else. “I know he was a young man from Kerala and had converted to Buddhism.”

Grams and her family are continuing their campaign for more crossings and greater saf-ety measures on Dubai roads.

Grams’ daughter Daniella has met Road Traffic Authority officials to discuss plans for pedestrians which will be introduced as part of the Metro. Grams said: “I would also like to see a change to the law to protect drivers who find themselves in this situation - when they are involved in an accident that wasn’t their fault.”

The experience of this woman sounds a lot like my "frogger" experience except with a much more macabre ending. This article does not mention charges against the driver, an earlier article in 7Days says that she was charged with "wrongful death of a pedestrian" but it was reported in other publications that she was "powerless to avoid mowing down the pedestrian."

Bottom line is it could happen to anyone. And even if there is nothing you can do, you still have to pay the blood money, a sobering thought. If there was ever a reason to stop texting while driving, this is it. I'm reformed.