Four die as woman stops on highway after flat tyre
Four people were killed when their car rammed into a 4×4 parked in the middle of the road on Sheikh Zayed Highway after it got a flat tyre. Normally we don’t report on accidents caused by the ignorance of people, but we figured we’ll take a look at what you should really do when you get a tyre puncture on the highway.
This accident could’ve been easily avoided. After a woman stopped her 4×4 on the third lane of a 120 kph road, she simply stepped out of it. According to Emirates 24/7, a driver who was passing through that area earlier apparently had also warned the woman to instantly take her car off the road but she did not listen.
Minutes later, a compact car with five passengers of the same family crashed into that vehicle after its driver was caught off-guard by the presence of the 4×4 on the road. The hit was so powerful that it pushed the 4×4 nearly 40 metres down the road. The 4×4’s owner was not hurt as she was standing outside the car. Four in the other car died, and one seriously injured. Among the dead, there was a 9-month-old baby.
Now we’ve actually come across this type of daftness several times, and had to swerve out of the way to avoid an accident, after quickly checking our mirrors in a split-second to make sure we ourselves didn’t run into another car. Keeping a safe distance from the car in front is very important here, as the driver in front will be suddenly swerving away too.
But what about when you yourself get a tyre puncture? When you hear the boom, don’t panic and don’t hit the brakes. Just ease off the accelerator pedal gradually and start moving towards the right side of the road while indicating your intentions. This is not the time to be worrying about damaging your alloy wheel.
About five years ago, back when we had limited means, my brother was driving his 1987 Toyota Supra Twin Turbo on the fast lane of Sheikh Zayed Road at 120 kph, he realised he had a flat tyre when the tailgating moron behind him started to back off. There wasn’t even a noise of any sort, but the car started feeling odd, so he simply pulled off to the hard shoulder, gradually easing off the pedal, stopped in a safe manner, called his buddies, got a lift with the perfectly-fine wheel to a place selling cheap Chinese tyres, came back, installed it, and off he went. Never had a flat tyre since then. At the time, I never instructed him to do any of this beforehand. He just used his common sense.
Comments
Ali
“back when we had limited means” !? driving a Toyota Supra ?? lol
Mashfique Hussain Chowdhury
Bought it for Dhs 5,000. Beat that.
Haze
So true, even the hard shoulder/emergency lane is not safe for tire changing, but everyone does it. Get well off the road.
I had a blowout approaching trade centre tunnel on SZR and managed to get off the highway and onto the service road, running on the bare rims.. a teeth grinding experience, but for goodness sake, never just stop in traffic when your car is still mobile.
Abu Faris
It’s really hard to get off the road! I tried that once, because it really is safer, but could not use the jack in soft sand!!
Kamran Haider
I hope the lady gets a jail term and the license canceled for good! This is really STUPID! how dumb does one have to be to be so careless!
Awais
And this is the only reason, girls/women must not allowed to drive on road.
Thanks to Saudi Arabia, we don’t have women drivers.
🙂
Nick Richardson
Well Saudi Arabia has enough mindless beduwins to make such blunders, they definitely do not need to add more
michael
Awais are you kidding me “women must not be allowed to drive….jeez get into the real world and not the backward mentality…..everyone should have proper drivers training period I see many more men that have no clue on how to drive correctly! WAKE UP!
Sunil
In Saudi, even blind gets behind a wheel.
Range Rover
I fear female drivers more then aggressive male drivers … true story!
Rahul Jones
If your tyre is not ripped off then your alloys won’t get damaged in my experience. And even as far as I know tyres get ripped off or torn into pieces if they are cheap chinese made or if they are ages old.
Feroz
now a days i am seeing many women mindless drivers on the dubai roads who dont hsv any sense
yesterday a woman in black charger stopped al of sudden while climbing on to alnahda safeer road from airport tunnel
she was on fone
i had a narrow escape
Chris
Don’t blame just the women. Men are equally guilty of pulling over on the hard shoulder next to the leftmost lane n change tyre with their bum sticking out to speeding cars.
Pull over to the right side or get off the highway completely. These are the mags at should be spread via social media and not what someone had for lunch or dinner
Abdirahman
May their soul be in paradise. Now I do not remeber him blaming women in general. Stop this these childish sexism please
Hasnain
Commonsense, yes! That’s the key to everything.
And ofcourse, it was her fault. Didn’t even occur to her once that she was standing still on a highway with speeding vehicles? Lucky she didn’t get hurt but I hope she can fight the guilt now.
Ciprian
yeahm it’s the whites, it’s the christians, no, the muslims, the arabs, no the women, the men no, the kids… mindless blames and excuses. PEOPLE DO STUPID MISTAKES. i did stupid mistakes and we all do. As mash pointed out, just use common sense and pretty much all should be fine insha allah
vivek
Finally, one fact!
Sunil
Such stupidity is called ‘Criminal negligence’. To stop on the middle of the motorway is not normal ‘stupid mistake’. If it was, it would not have cost 4 lives.
@ Vivek, there is no fact in the comment, it is only an opinion.
vivek
He wasn’t referring to what caused this particular accident. He was referring to the sexist and racist comments passed on by the majority whenever such incidents occur. And people making mistakes regardless of gender, race and nationality, is indeed a fact.
In this particular case, it was sheer stupidity on the woman’s part, to halt in the middle of a motorway following a tyre burst; stupidity, right up to the point where another motorist warned her and requested her to pull over to the hard shoulder. The moment she chose to ignore it, it became willful ignorance, and unfortunately, a costly one.
Alvin Emmanuel Thomas
The deaths involved due to the limited knowledge of what to do in a “real-life situation” is just so sad… Really!
lovebmw
I think last year there was an incident where a man was trying to change the blown out tire of his car in the emergency lane on the sheikh zayed when an SUV ran over that man’s body, His family witnessed the whole accident in horror as the man’s body was ripped in two pieces. I think its great idea to get your car of the main highway if u can in situations like this to avoid accidents
Mufaddal
It’s good drivearabia has emphasized on such an incident, to highlight how a dumb person can cause such a fatality.
9 month old baby was one of the deceased makes it more painful.
Terence Crasto
Life is precious….it sends a chill down your spine imagining the poor family who least expected to die such a horrific death…stunned to even know the woman had the guts to step out of the 4×4 on sheikh zayed road which is unimaginable considering the number of cars always passing through….I hope and pray the roads of UAE stay safe and accident free throughout the EID weekend….also watch out for nasty last-minute line changing by other GCC vehicles during EID
Momo
Since people in UAE are so ignorrant there will be more accidents like that. I hope this lady will spend the rest of her life in prison
michael
I come from the USA and before I came here I had never seen people drive with such a total lack of driver training/common sense EVER. Case in point: Stop sign means STOP not yield.
Right of way no one understands.
Left turns from first, second and sometimes the third lane the arrows painted on the road mean something.
I could go on and on and on but this is enough…
Shahzad Haider
I must appreciate DriveArabia.com and Mr. Mashfique for writing this article and showing his social responsibility towards society …
haze
RTA need to use their SMS spam lists to send public information messages about how to avoid this kind of thing. Its the only way you can actually reach everyone here, seeing as though there is no main TV or Radio broadcaster as you may find elsewhere.
S Mathew
I remember when I had to go for my driving classes in Dubai around 9 years back, there was a mandatory lecture which the new learners had to attend. The instructor had to sign off that you had attended the same before you could proceed to your road test. I clearly remember the lecturer explaining different scenarios on the road including how to stop the vehicle when you have a flat tyre. I also remember an important lesson the lecturer taught us on how not to wave your hand to gesture to a person wanting to cross the road, giving your consent to cross the road. Crossing the road should be the responsibility of the pedestrian as he/she should cross only after deeming it safe to do so. One of our colleagues lost his life after he crossed the road when a motorist stopped his car and allowed him to pass through and a car from the first track mowed him down.
Emphasis should be given on such classes during the learning process and tests should be conducted to check the understanding of the new driver before he/she is certified to drive.
Saad
After this accident enough is enough. If the aim of our rulers are to make accidents less we should be hearing about his in every news,e very channel, every meter of UAE should be filled with awareness on how such an act can cause death to a complete family.
I want to see public awareness about this issue all over UAE. If even the security guard in the school next door doesnt know about this, it was a failed marketing and public awareness !!!
Mrs.Purple
“Common sense” is really not that common – really! My heart goes out for the 9 month old baby. Would any one know if the baby was strapped in a car seat?
There have been stats showing that women are better drivers… But I have seen ridiculous women drivers and men drivers…. Who cares if it was a woman or a man… Thats not the point of this article. Accidents happen!
sam
i will take a wild guess and go with, no the baby was not in a baby seat or strapped in. anyway whats done is done, it is very unfortunate. let the victims RIP.
lets hope everyone uses the power of the social media to spread awareness so that this is not repeated again.
while we are at it, can we also spread the “please dont use ur hazards while driving thru rain or fog” as well
cayanide
It was all destined to happen have faith
Wizard
I have been driving for last 10 years and so far from my experience more important than learning road signs is learning about how a car works, but unfortunately people are not made to learn them. I feel people should be at least trained to change tire or put break oil or check engine oil before they get their driving license. This are simple things that can do lots of good.
prado
one very stupid 4×4 driver….
Mohamed
women must not be allowed to drive
they all have no sense to act on the raod
she must go for jail,
mohammad
The thing is that even the cops don’t drive properly. How many times have you seen a cop car indicate a lane change? And this morning I saw a cop car pull over a Tiida on the right lane on Bypass Road (6 lane highway). Yeah, the highway is quite empty but still he could have at least made the Tiida pull over on the right hard shoulder. A couple of weeks ago the police pulled over another car, but this time on the left hard shoulder (also on Bypass Road).
Oh and how often have you seen them drive their patrol cars with the headlights off and the fog lights on??