So, a young man who works in sports at The National …

On Wednesday last he got his UAE drivers license. It’s not a difficult process, for an American to get a UAE drivers license. A little cash, you display your U.S. license, you produce a “no objection” letter from your employer, and you can be out in 20 minutes.

Before Wednesday, he just hadn’t gotten around to it. And then he did for a reason: He wanted to be able to drive to Dubai to cover the world Under 17 basketball championship. In which the U.S. is playing.

So, the first four days in the car … going great. Up to Dubai and back. Up and back.

Then suddenly they were not going great.

And the amazing thing is … he didn’t even set a National sports department record.

It was about 8 p.m. that I got a call, at the office.

Our guy, no doubt in a hurry (to get from one U17 tournament venue to another) was pulling out of a parking lot, in Dubai, when he drove in front of another vehicle, which bashed his rental pretty good. And didn’t make the other guy’s SUV look any better, either.

When he called, it sounded as if 1) his dog had died or 2) he feared he might be taken to jail. Getting in a wreck can do that to a person. Leave them in the dumps. Or propel them towards the workplace of the local gendarmarie.

However, he did not go to the police station. He conceded he was at fault, he signed a document written in Arabic, and the cops went away.

He was OK a few hours later, and the rental car company brought him a replacement vehicle within a few hours.

So, today, we were talking about this, in the office, and I said something like, “Let’s see, license on Wednesday, totals his first car on Monday.”

And one of our co-workers topped that.

Maybe five years ago, a young British guy, now departed (from the job, not this mortal coil), got his UAE license, came into work, was so excited about being able to drive (also a rental, I believe) that he volunteered to go out and pick up lunch — just so he could drive around.

While out on his second time behind the wheel, in the UAE, he ran into a bus. Or, to be fair, it could be the bus ran into him, pulling out into traffic too quickly. Or, maybe, as a Briton conditioned to driving on the left he had trouble with this driving-on-the-right thing. But still …

So, he got his UAE license in the morning and was involved in his first wreck within six hours.

I thought our current co-worker must have set a record. But the actual record … is going to be tough to break without making a point of it.