Oye driver! Beware the diver!!

Today's blog is about something very disturbing I read in the papers today. It made me sick to my stomach and I still can't get over it. Here's what it was:
The repoter started the article by saying that he knew it was going to be very difficult for people to believe him but it was, nevertheless, the truth. Apparently there have been 40 suicides in the last 2 months on the roads of the U.A.E. And no! These were not crazy people or misguided teenagers. All 40 of these deaths were of poor labourers. Like the rest of the enormous expatriate population (your's truly included!!), these people came to this country with big dreams, hoping that they would be able to earn good money and manage to support their families back home as well as save enough to support themselves when they retired and perhaps even put their children through school and college. Unfortunately however, these dreams stayed dreams and failed to transform themselves into anything more. After having been brought here mostly by construction companies, reality seems to have come down rather hard on them. There are quite a few companies that fail to pay the labourers their dues for months on end. Obviously the debts rise to uncontrollable levels; combine that with the enormous pressure from their families back home and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. So they do the only thing they can. They stand at the side of the busiest roads in the hours of the early morning or late at night and when they spot a car coming fast enough- they jump in front of it!!! Why? Because the laws of this country state that if a pedestrian is knocked over the driver has to pay them 'Blood money'. It ranges from AED 75000 if the person is paralysed or disabled all the way upto AED 150000 if the person dies in the 'ACCIDENT'. This covers these people's debts as well as gives their families more than enough money to live a comfortable life. This is how desperate these people are. What they fail to understand (or maybe they choose not to think of) is that they are destroying the lives of the drivers of these cars. They end up having to spend time in prison, pay huge sums of money (although the insurance covers most of it) and get blacklisted. If all that is'nt enough they have to live with the knowledge that they were responsible for another human's death. Not something I would like hanging on my conscience! Wow! I think I'm going to buy myself a skateboard to get to work from now on!!!
Bluechild's advice for the day: Don't jump in front of moving cars. It's not nice! Sigh!!! :-(