Traffic Patient

Tune in to any radio station of UAE like 89.1 or 101.6 or 95.3 FM and you will always find people calling up the radio jockeys and informing them about traffic jams. The RJ's acknowledge these so called jam busters and advise the people on the roads to avoid a particular road. I sometimes wonder whether it really must be helping people, especially those who want to reach a particular destination and that's the only road that they can take. But yesterday, I was quite amused to listen to a lady who called up the radio jockey and described her woes of being stuck for the last 2 hours in front of a petrol station, and described herself as a "traffic patient". It seems that the people around her had given up and many had crossed the road and fetched themselves tea/ coffee and were standing on the sidewalks enjoying the view. However, more than her story, I liked the term "Traffic Patient" so much, that it compelled me to post this blog. Isn't it such an appropriate term to describe a person's condition stuck in traffic?

A traffic patient can be described as one who has the following symptoms

1. He / she always tends to get stuck in traffic for hours together.

2. He / she has pain in the right leg (feet, toe, thighs, knees) because of applying brake and accelerator after every 15 seconds and sometimes continuously for an hour or so.

3.He / she suffers from hypertension because each car seems to be trying to overtake him / her by doing some manouvres that he / she could never dream of.

4.He / she suffers from chronic headaches, eye stress etc because he / she has to concentrate on the road completely against his / her wishes.

You might have read the famous cliche "Every problem is actually an opportunity knocking at your door". So can the traffic problem also be an opportunity? Yes, if you think along these lines:

1. If you are a doctor, you can advertise that you specialise in treating traffic patients, that you have special medicines to cure headaches, eyes irritation, feet - toes-knees-thighs-aches.

2. You can open a massage parlour that specialises in giving special " anti-traffic" massage. Think of a good jingle to place an ad.

3. If you are a Toastmaster, getting stuck in traffic is the best opportunity to practice your speech. In fact, if your husband / wife dislikes you preparing a speech at home, just go out for some work in the car and prepare your speech while you are stuck in traffic. I have done that several times and no, it does not seem odd to others who look at you because they think that you are speaking to somebody on hands free.

4.Open a workshop specialising in installation of the latest DVD player with a built in 8 inch screen that can play movies of all formats mpeg, avi, flv, divx, wma etc etc. You can market this by telling people that they can gainfully use the time they waste in waiting in traffic jams, by catching up on the latest movies or serials. If priced reasonably, the demand to install these DVD players will be so high that it is an assured way to become a millionaire.

Can you think of more?

But this really - takes the cake- it is what my friend from Dubai had to say about the traffic situation in Dubai. "Sajid, these days I am spending more time in my car than with my wife, but it is difficult to say which is better".