The United Arab Emirates is a distant doppelganger to Southern California, when it comes to cars. They love their wheels here. Love them. Mass transit here is buses. Not a rail line in the country, that I know of, though the government apparently is considering a high-speed rail link between the country’s major coastal cities. So, cars a necessity as well as a pleasure.

But in two-plus years here, I have yet to have a formal relationship with a car. Or truck. Or SUV, and SUVs are more common here even than in SoCal, in part because they can be taken off the road and into the undeveloped part of the desert for what is indelicately known as “dune bashing.”

Not long after we arrived, October of 2009, a guy we worked with declared that he was a big proponent of private vehicles. “It will change your life,” he said.

Here we are, 27 months later, and I haven’t gone in yet for the life-changing experience.

At times, I realize I was sick of driving, in SoCal. I never had to make a five-day-a-week commute like a lot of poor souls, fighting across I-10 or up I-5 or down the 405. Avoided that. But I had more than a few 70-mile drives to sports events in downtown Los Angeles. Not fun. A waste.

Once you get past the rush of driving, about age 18 or so, you begin to realize it is a hassle getting anywhere by car in SoCal, and gas is expensive, and so is insurance and parking fees. But you have to have a car in SoCal. You must. Few cabs, impossible to live on rail.

In the UAE, however, you can get along without a car. Cabs are plentiful and cheap in the big cities. At last count, Abu Dhabi City had eight cab companies, each with about 900 cabs, and they circulate all the time. It isn’t like Paris, where you might have trouble finding a cab. Only in the most out-of-the-way places (and only in odd hours) is it hard to find a cab here in town.

The 15-minute ride from the apartment to the beach is 20 dirhams, which includes a tip, and 20 dirhams is about $5.40. It’s half that cost to get to the nearest shopping center, or to catch a ride home from work.

I understand some of the up sides of leasing (or even buying) a car. The convenience of walking outside and have a ride waiting for you — as one was this morning because I had rented a car to cover a match in Al Ain the previous night — well, that’s nice.

The idea of not having to stand in the killer sun in July, waiting even five minutes for a cab. The relative speed of getting where you need to go, and no need to describe to a cabbie where it is you wish to go. OK.

But the down sides are more numerous and more dire.

That car just outside your door? It’s going to be 130 degrees when you get inside, during the summer, and by the time you feel the AC kick in, you might already be sitting in a pool of sweat before you get to wherever you’re going.

The car outside your door also will cost you at least $350 a month to lease, and maybe $400 if you haven’t gone low end. That’s a lot of cab rides.

Parking here can be a major issue. That is, in the built-up parts of town, finding a parking spot is a hassle, and the city also now charges fees for some of the best spots. (They cost nothing, before.)

Also, drivers here are all kinds of bad. I am absolutely positive that a fair number of people behind the wheel in the UAE don’t really know how to operate a motor vehicle and have never had any formal instruction.

Drivers here are, overall, wretched. Both technically and in terms of judgment. If any lame decision can be made on the road, it will be. So you need to be in ultra-defensive mode, when driving, and that is nerve-racking. (As is trying to hunt for a destination while actually operating your vehicle.)

Even if you are careful as hell, you still could get wrecked. And if you’re going to be in a wreck, I would rather it be in a cab with me in the back seat, and not responsible for damages.

We also have the not-small matter of traffic tickets. People who commute to The National from, say, Dubai, up the road, or Al Ain, in the interior, tell of monstrous amounts of money they owe the government for having been caught in the electronic speed traps. Thousands of dollars a year.

And another issue? Driving and alcohol. This is a zero-tolerance country. If you decide to have a beer after work, you have to leave your car wherever you went to drink, because only idiots drive here after they have been drinking. Any sort of alcohol reading (forget that .08 in California), you’re screwed. You can’t even transport alcohol without getting into trouble.

The penalty can be still jail time; at best, you will be deported.

The only upside to driving here, versus SoCal, is the price of gas. It’s about $1.65 a gallon here.

So, let’s review: Convenience of your own wheels and cheap gas … versus $4,000 a year to the rental car company, the cost of tickets, a car that will feel like a furnace for the first 10 minutes you get into it in the summer, and the very strong chance you will be involved in a wreck, and the risk of drunken driving.

Easy call. Once in a while I miss having a car. Usually, I get over it in a matter of minutes.