Opinion February 8, 2018 at 10:13 am

OPINION: Why Dubai Employers Need To Give ‘Fog Days’ To Their Employees

ByCasey Fitzgerald

Bear with me on this one.

‘Dubai wakes up to a thick blanket of heavy fog’ is a phrase we hear all too much.

And while it makes for some beautiful pictures, the reality is UAE roads are a dangerous place to be once the fog descends.

We know this only too well after seeing the frightening footage of a massive truck colliding with vehicles on Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Street early on Tuesday morning.

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A crash which ultimately involved 44 cars, where 22 injuries (two people are critically injured) and another crash today involving 28 vehicles is about as much bad news as we can handle.

Social media is rife with warnings

On mornings like this, social media is rife with warnings. Police issue warnings, the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) constantly publish updates and no doubt your social media feeds are clogged with people jumping up and down to tell you it’s foggy out.

And it’s easy to forget that a beautiful image of the Burj Khalifa covered in clouds most likely means visibility on the roads will be slim to none.

Yet day after foggy day, residents take to the roads to get to work, in seriously nasty driving conditions.

Work from home mornings could be the solution

For the most part, the fog lifts by about 10am.

During peak traffic time, roads are thick with traffic (and fog), and accidents are nearly unavoidable.

Like other countries have snow days, we could do with a fog day here in the UAE. Or at least a fog morning.

It’s simple. Employers could make a call depending on weather alerts from Police or weather sites. They could advise employees who get to work by car to leave a little later, free up the roads and come to work in an hour or two once the fog has lifted.

We’re not saying take a full day, but an hour or two in the morning could make all the difference.