Drivers keep sand-trap saviours busy

With the engine running and air conditioning on full blast, Zaheer Mohammed Ali sips his evening tea and scans the heavy traffic ahead. Before long, he spots a car moving away from the road and heading towards the sand and he knows his working day has begun. Mr Ali and others like him are one more by-product of Dubai's difficult housing market. As more and more people who work in the city are forced to commute from Sharjah, where rents are more affordable, so the road between the two emirates has become increasingly unbearable during the morning and evening rush hours.

And, as motorists become more and more frustrated, many have taken to going off-road in a bid to bypass the jams - and that is where Mr Ali and his colleagues come in. It has become a daily ritual. As the evening traffic thickens, so recovery lorries start to appear, lining the roadside near busy junctions, like so many lions tracking migrating wildebeest in search of sick or wounded prey. Their drivers are on the lookout for breakdowns but increasingly find themselves going to the aid of motorists whose vehicles and off-road skills have proved no match for the temptingly uncongested sands on either side of the road.

Mr Ali, who lives in Sharjah, says he and his colleagues are providing a public service. "It is a service that we offer," he says. "We do this more as a social work than to make money." During the past three years he has spent rescuing drivers and their vehicles, he has seen the road conditions grow worse - and desperate drivers become more reckless. Several of the routes leading from Sharjah to Dubai, including the most popular, Al Ittihad Road, are the busiest in the emirate and the motorists who use them struggle through hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic to reach their destinations. The congestion is blamed on the countless thousands who work in Dubai but live in Sharjah because they cannot afford rental costs in Dubai, and the recovery drivers haunt the worst bottlenecks and junctions.

"Many recovery trucks wait in such areas," says Mr Ali. "When motorists get stuck, they call us or we go to them and offer the service." Roads near the Sahara Centre, the National Paints roundabout, the Taawun Mall area, Abu Shagara and the vast industrial areas outside Dubai are the ones where inviting stretches of desert tempt frustrated drivers. As more and more motorists take to the sand, so the terrain becomes more churned up and harder to negotiate.

The recovery drivers use cables to haul cars out of trouble; if the vehicle is damaged, they will load it on to the back of the lorry and deliver it to a garage or the owner's home. The Sharjah Industrial Area is crawling with recovery lorries, carrying vehicles or touting for business at strategic locations with their mobile numbers flashing. Each driver can expect at least three or four breakdown jobs a day - enough for survival, they say.

"There are no shortcuts on these roads," says Balan, another recovery driver. "People have to wait in the traffic but they get so frustrated that they lose their senses. It is just a joke to see all of them get stuck day after day at almost the same places." Not that the marooned motorists are laughing. Apart from the embarrassment and frustration of becoming stuck in the sand, they face a recovery charge that can range from Dh50 to as much as Dh100, a price, says Mr Ali, "fixed depending on the time of day and the size of the vehicle".

He denied the charge was exploitative. "It takes us a lot of effort to pull back the car to the road and drivers actually thank us for it." Zubair Ahmed, 28, is possibly the youngest recovery driver in the business, but he has been coming to the rescue of broken-down vehicles for almost a decade. He has no time for impatient motorists who drive themselves into trouble and has given up pulling out cars left high and dry in the sand.

"This is a waste of time," says Mr Ahmed. "I have enough business with companies and garages. So, I don't have to wait around." Only the new drivers who have fewer contacts hang about waiting for sand jobs, he says. He is a master of the inner routes of the Sharjah Industrial Area and boasts that he can reach any corner with ease. With his mobile number pasted all over his lorry in bright colours, he hangs out at petrol stations and garages, waiting for the inevitable to happen. "This mobile phone never stops ringing," he says. "It's too busy around here in Sharjah. Despite hundreds of recovery trucks available, there is still business for all."

Regular Sharjah-Dubai commuters say that cars stuck in the sand are a regular sight. "I have seen them stuck in the sand virtually every day," says Gopi Prasad, a Sharjah resident who works as an executive in Dubai Internet City. "I stopped using the sand routes after I almost got stuck in the sand one evening on my way back from work." Whatever the cost of rescue, most drivers are happy to pay it.

"It is a struggle to get back home each day," says Unni Krishnan, a resident of Sharjah. "You end up taking the wrong route sometimes and I am glad such recovery truck operators are at hand. I have noticed that the turn up out of nowhere when you get stuck." pmenon@thenational.ae