Been dealing with cabbies since the night we arrived. Caught one in the middle of Najda Street an hour after touching down.

Cabs become a part of your life here, unless you take on the risky/expensive proposition of driving yourself.

What you ought to do is make an arrangement with a cabbie you like and pay him extra to come pick you up at a certain time and place. Because otherwise you find yourself standing on the edges of hot and dirty sidewalks, trying to wave down someone on 110-degree days.

Yes. Talked about that here before.

The news here, and I don’t mean to bury the lead, is that the city’s cab companies seem to have been turned over to thousands of guys who just parachuted into Abu Dhabi.  And these guys are … drivers from hell.

Driver competence in Abu Dhabi is low. I think people who live here permanently would tell you the same thing.

Why? An unfortunate combination of at least three factors.

1. Lots of drivers, especially cabbies, grew up in countries where they had little access to four-wheel vehicles … and learned how to drive, say, last week. It takes a while to get the concept down, as any parent of teenagers can attest. But here you might been working as a cabbie for a month before you actually have any sort of grasp of competent driving.

2. The raw aggression on the streets. Every driver seems to compete for every car length. To ridiculous extremes. People will speed up and tailgate just so that guy next to him doesn’t nose in front. They cut each other off constantly, and at speed. Road rage is something drivers in Southern California know about … and it’s at least as bad here.  Makes for a lot of bad driving decisions, a lot of unnecessarily dangerous situations.

3. The traffic. It isn’t awful right this minute because it’s still the height of summer, and people who can afford to be gone pretty much are. But it normally is. Awful. Think three cycles of green-yellow-red before getting through an intersection. That is not at all uncommon from, say, 8 a.m. till 10 p.m. every weekday.

OK, into this dangerous brew … add what really do seem to be thousands of new, reckless cabbies. And you have to deal with them because you don’t have a car, remember? And “your” cabbie doesn’t work 24/7.

My complaints with all these new guys?

They have the kind of habits your father or your friends or your spouse ought to have driven out of you by now. “Flutter foot” … the annoying practice of pressing down on the gas and accelerating, then taking the foot off and coasting. This can make for a ship-at-sea lurching, which can lead directly to queasiness.  The other night Leah demanded we stop the cab about 100 yards short of our destination … so she could get out of the car before she yakked.

Then we have the basics of … “is something actually in the lane next to me? I don’t actually have to bother to check.” Which leads to insane swerving and horn pounding. And the “I am going to race to the next signal, shifting into overdrive to go from zero to 80 as fast as my Camry will take me.” And then decelerating rapidly to keep from rear-ending the 10-car line of vehicles already at the stop.

Another issue is the aggression and frustration of young, male cabbies … exacerbated by long hours behind the wheel and dealing with foreigners all day. I imagine they just get ticked off, and it shows in their work. They seem to feel as if they are fighting against the world. That car must be cut off. This car must be honked at because it’s been at least half a second since the light went green and he still hasn’t moved.

But some of this is just incompetence. Really. Forget anger and frustration. If no one ever taught you the basic rules of defensive driving … well, you’re going to learn the hard way. I just hope I’m not in the backseat when you hit something or something hits you.

So, for weeks now — and it seemed to happen overnight — we have been dealing with cabbies who can’t drive. Every trip seems to be an exercise in “will I make it to the other end before this kid crashes?”

It wasn’t like this when we arrived. Competent drivers were in the majority. Now, they are a rarity to be complimented and commented on.

I don’t know where these new guys came from, but they are trouble. And we will have to deal with them as long as our guy, Benjamin, is home in the Philippines.

Benjamin: Hurry back.