When I think of the 2017 year, it felt so quick. So quick that I still remember the Land Rover Discovery drive back in Utah in February. Time passes by amazingly fast. Here we are in November already. Two major happenings this
month will take place: the Dubai Motor Show from the 14th until the 18th of November and ArabWheels Awards 2017 on the eve of November 15th. We will be available at the ArabWheels booth during the motor show week, so we will see you then. The results and winners of this year’s ArabWheels Awards will be published on our website and social media and you will be able to see the coverage next month in the December issue.
During my travels I’m always thinking, what are the top 20 most congested cities, in terms of traffic? And here I am bringing you a nice study by INRIX 2016 Traffic Scorecard. In general, the average driver will spend 32 hours a year in traffic jams. The U.S. alone accounts for 11 of the top 25 cities worldwide with the worst traffic congestion. The INRIX 2016 Traffic Scorecard analyzed congestion in 1,064 cities in 38 countries and I’ve picked out the world’s 20 most congested cities. In fact, the average driver will spend no less than 104.1 hours per year in Los Angeles traffic, considerably more than somebody living in Moscow, where they spend roughly 91.4 hours behind the wheel on an annual basis.
Rounding off the top ten are cities like New York (89.4 hrs), San Francisco (82.6 hrs), Bogota (79.8 hrs), Sao Paulo (77.2 hrs), London (73.4 hrs), Atlanta (70.8 hrs), Paris (65.3 hrs) and Miami (64.8 hrs). Other U.S. cities like Washington, Dallas, Boston, Chicago and Seattle are also quite congested, joining the likes of Bangkok, Mexico City, Istanbul, Krasnodar and Jakarta in the top 20.
What do we have in our November issue?
First of all, we featured a preview of the vehicles that will be shown during the Dubai Motor Show week. You can have a look at what’s going to be launched as a production vehicle or concept vehicle.
Our cover story has been dedicated to the all-new 2018 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado. I know many of you have been waiting for this longtime GCC-loving vehicle; you will able to see it live during the motor show and surely read our First Drive review.
In our Global Drive section, we drove the all-new 2018 Audi A8 in Valencia, and for the first time the 2018 Jaguar XF Sportbrake will make it to the Middle East. In our Regional Drive section, back home in Lebanon we drove the 2018 facelifted Nissan X-Trail. In our Editors’ Choice section, Ershad drove the Infiniti Q60 S coupe with 400 horsepower in Dubai.
During the GITEX week, we interviewed one of the directors of Mercedes-Benz to give us insights on the future of mobility worldwide and within Daimler.
Again I leave you here and will see you in our next, and final issue of 2017, which is going
to be pretty special as we will be celebrating in December, ArabWheels’ 15th anniversary!
Issam Eid