In Doha, apart from the wild driving, there is a culture of not using seatbelts for kids. The theory being that god will take care of them, or that the "safest place for a child is in its mother's arms". Children bounce all around the car like little crash test dummies, moving from middle of the car to front, to actually in the boot....
After picking Alex up from school today, we were stuck in traffic at the infamous Salwa Decoration roundabout (if you don't live here, you won't know it; if you do live here, you'll loathe it), and next to us was a police car.
They looked at us, so Alex (sitting in the front passenger seat but safely buckled, naturally) smiled at them and they smiled then waved at us. We waved nicely back (no point in getting on the wrong side of the police!). They wound down their window and indicated for us to do the same. We did so, and the friendly cop asked Alex's age.
Twelve, he replied.
Oh, said the cop. You should be sitting in the back seat, it's not allowed for you to sit in the front.
Ooops!
At that point the traffic started moving, so I took my attention off the (not really so) friendly cop and looked at the car in front of me.
Only to see 4 little kids standing on the back seat of their Toyota Landcruiser, waving at us.... I guess that was allowed .....
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