Dubais Abandoned Cars | Dubai is a typical layover destination. Tourists usually only stay here for one or two days. Enough time to explore the city life of this super rich and mega modern metropolis. Once back on their home turf the Dubai tourists often share one similar experience: “We saw quite many luxury cars rotting on the side of the road”. In fact it takes a tourist only a few hours to easily count a hundred abandoned cars in the streets of Dubai. Why?
Luxury cars sometimes worth $1,000,000+ can be found gathering dust on roadsides across Dubai. They are remnants of the economic boom that came to an abrupt halt by the global financial crisis in 2008. Since then the region has been repeatedly hit by economic turmoil. Most recently oil prices halved from their peaks. Even the otherwise pretty resilient United Arab Emirates have fallen on hard times. As unemployment takes its toll, the number of abandoned vehicles has risen by another 20% in 2016.
There is an astonishing sight at Dubai’s international airport: dozens of luxury cars – Lambos, Ferraris, Benz, Porsche, Beamers – abandoned with the car keys still in the ignition, sometimes with notes of apology taped to the windscreen. The owners: mainly British expats. They’ve left Dubai in a hurry because of crippling debts as a result of Dubai’s financial meltdown. Many of them have defaulted on loans. But rather than risking jail, they drove to the airport with a one-way-ticket back to Europe. Smart move.
Tourists can spot abandoned cars not just in airports but anywhere in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Under Sharia law, the failure to pay back debt is a criminal offense. And such offender faces prison. To avoid that many just leave their cars in Airport Terminals, side streets or parking lots and flee the country. The UAE has no bankruptcy laws = no protection should you fail to meet your repayments.
Dubais Abandoned Cars
Dubais abandoned cars. By Chili & Chirp | Hugging Horizons since 2004 | Visit our Travel Alphabet.
