National Day is an important holiday for the people living in the UAE.\u00a0 It is a day of patriotism, celebration, and thankfulness by people for being able to live in such a great nation.\u00a0 An emerging trend over the recent years has been for people to decorate their cars and to participate in National Day parades.<\/p>\n
Vehicles are decorated in many different ways to celebrate National Day.\u00a0 The colors of the nation\u2019s flag are incorporated in many ways, including spandex covers for car hoods, mirrors and other elements.\u00a0 These colorful decorations are very affordable, with a mirror cover only costing Dh10, so pretty much any driver is able to participate in the festivities.\u00a0 Some, however are far more expensive, with custom decals and hood scarves sometimes costing upward of Dh3000.<\/p>\n
By far the most popular decorative elements are images of national leaders and heroes.\u00a0 These are semi-transparent and are often placed over vehicle widows and rear-windshields.\u00a0 These too can be very expensive, but seem to be only getting more popular as time passes.<\/p>\n
Despite the festive nature of this holiday and the vehicle decorations, police in many areas of the UAE are cracking down on people whose decorations seem excessive or are dangerous.\u00a0 Sometimes, the window decals can impair visibility and make it dangerous for a person to be on the road at all.\u00a0 Also celebrants tend to pile far more people into their vehicles than is safe, occasionally even allowing people to ride on the top of their cars.\u00a0 People also sometimes perform dangerous stunts in their cars in an attempt to gain attention or be amusing.\u00a0 Fines for people who have dangerous decorations or who behave recklessly can be fined anywhere from Dh1200-Dh1500.\u00a0 Police are also only allowing these decorations to be on cars for a very limited time before National Day and say they must be removed immediately afterward.\u00a0 Police have patrols that look for anyone acting dangerously, having too much decoration, or blocking the traffic flow, and issue them citations.<\/p>\n
Though there are official National Day parades, motorists also take part in unofficial ones.\u00a0 The police stance on these is that they are illegal and anybody caught participating in one can face serious penalties.\u00a0 In the year 2012 in Dubai alone, police seized 88 cars and cited 1245 drivers for these sort of violations.\u00a0\u00a0 This does not seem excessive, however, because in the same year, there were 24 crashes and even a death resulting from excessive decoration and misbehavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
National Day is an important holiday for the people living in the UAE.\u00a0 It is a day of patriotism, celebration, and thankfulness by people for being able to live in such a great nation.\u00a0 An emerging trend over the recent years has been for people to decorate their cars and to participate in National Day …<\/p>\n