| Kippreport.com

The perception of bringing back the Salik toll

December 11, 2012 11:10 by M. Aldalou

Kipp would usually prefer to wait until the end of one of our polls before we write a commentary piece on it, but judging by the current one we have on, which you can still see on the right-hand side and which has proven to be very popular; there’s absolutely no need to wait.

We worry. Yes Kipp worries a great deal. This time, we worried that we were being too pessimistic by thinking that reinstating the Salik fee for taxi commutes in Dubai has absolutely nothing to do with alleviating traffic and more with funding projects and paying off debts. Luckily, we feel better now seeing as how our readers believe the same.

“They might as well charge people for walking under the gate. Clearly they’re just ripping us off. They can’t keep hiding behind the notion of ‘fairness’ when Salik hasn’t reduced traffic flow like it’s supposed to. Problem is, these corporations think that the people are stupid. It’s quite sad. Should be renamed to Dubai Tax-ing,” tweets Dubai resident, Miltiadis Kyvernitis.

If you’re passionate about this subject – and enjoy clinging on to the shred of controversy it contains – then you may keep following the poll for the next couple of days but as it stands now: over 91 percent of our readers believe what we believe and less than 9 percent are giving the authorities the benefit of the doubt.

Yes you may correctly point out that there is nothing wrong with bringing this tax back to life and using the proceeds to fund real estate or financial projects. You may also highlight the fact that the authorities have not ruled out this motive.

Certainly, if it is true, they haven’t expressed it. In Kipp’s book, if you make a statement about the reason behind any implemented rule – particularly one that was scrapped four years ago – then everything else not mentioned is naturally a contradiction.

In any case, even if the motive isn’t necessarily to alleviate traffic let’s hope that it does that nonetheless.

Tags: Dubai taxi, road toll salik dubai, RTA, Sheikh Zayed Road stunts, taxis in Dubai