SALIK

[BIKKERDENNAH]

Dont forget your salik tags by 1st JULY folks.

100 dhs each, 50dhs admin FU##$NG fee 50 dhs credit!!

UNBELIEVABLE!!:D

[emratty]

First day of Salik today i have never seen SZR so quiet! no hold ups from the marina to Garhoud although i believe the other roads were a total nightmare. I will happily pay to use SZR to avoid the millions of Toyota Echos clogging up the back roads!

[troff]

Salik: "Clear" my A%$!!! Total cash grab! Petrol station today was awash with purchasers and gas jockeys were filling out forms for customers using ice cream freezers as desks! Must be swamped at head office, too, as I tried to get login info from the website and found service "unavailable". Not surprising. Traffic was miserable on Al Wasl between the Burjs'...:}

[TangoUniform]

Total disaster heading to the Greens today. A normal 20 minute drive not on SZR took 1 hr 15. Heard it was the same all over. Wonder what the other bridges in and out of Deira was like.:confused:

[Lovebird 25]

Today i was gonig home from Mall of the Emirates, i saw a huge traffic jam starting from Al Barsha area.It was really funny to me how people tried to avoid Sheik Zayed Road where there was a Salik gate.
I think it's a great invention, if only it helps to have a smooth drive on a highway. Well it’s not that bad if you are being charged, the maximum charge will be 24Dhs a day for no matter how much you drive through the gates, for not getting stuck in endless traffic jam. I really hope the system works.

[Aircav]

Yep, but you can afford to pay it. Spare a thought for the people that earn less than 2000 a month with no public transport alternative.

The other problem is all the other routes are car parks so woe betide you if you have to go anywhere else. A 30 min journey took me 1:15 today and I wasn't trying to avoid Salik, in fact I was trying to get on to SZR.

[Canoehead]

I would think the lack of traffic on the toll roads is not so much due to people too cheap (or unable to afford) the Salik stickers, but rather the fact that most people don't have their stickers yet, and really don't feel like paying the rather heavy fines for offenders. I'm sure the bridge and S. Zayed Rd will be back to normal :eek::eek:in the coming weeks.

[Lock n' Load]

Does anyone know if taxis pay the charge? I got charged Dhs4 extra each way last night for going through the Al Barsha gate, but last week a taxi driver told me taxis were exempt. It's a farce...

Oh, and don't forget if your car is leased or rented, you'll get hit with admin charges! Apparently I'm paying Dhs5 a time. :ugh:

[miss petal]

Taxi really? I paid 4 dhs extra last time...

Anyone knows about the taxi?

[mensaboy]

Taxis have to pay as well, but they are capped at 24dhs a day, at least that is what i'm told. In other words, after they have passed on the 24dhs charges to their customers, if they continue to charge subsequent customers it goes into their pocket, which is definitely not the intent.

[Lock n' Load]

I asked the taxi driver how many times he'd been through Salik that day, and of course he didn't say 6!

[ALBALOOSHI]

How come that you have to pay :confused:.... its stupid.

I think that one day we will have to pay a tax to go out from our houses :}

huhuhuh

[Wiley]

Since the Salik gates remain active on Fridays and throughout the night, (when SZR usually carries only very light traffic), it's pretty hard not to come to the conclusion that this whole exercise was designed first and foremost as a cash cow. That being the case, when they see how many people are clogging the alternative routes, stand by for toll gates to appear on those other roads as well.

Fed up with outrageous rises in the cost of living in Dubai over the last few years, quite a few international companies have stopped posting senior staff to Dubai on a permanent, accompanied basis, but instead have them there unaccompanied for a few months at a time. This must have cost Dubai Inc a fortune in lost revenue already, (a lot more than might first come to mind, because the kind of people who aren't staying permanently and accompanied any more are from the high end of town, whose families used to inject a lot more into the economy than the average Joe like you and me).

If I may mix my metaphors unmercifully, Salik is just one more straw upon the proverbial camel's back towards the seemingly inevitable death of the Golden Goose the Dubai workforce is seen to be.