In a previous life as a Southern Californian, I remember being told how bad we all were at driving in the rain.

And, collectively, SoCal people probably are bad at it. People living there expect their roads to be dry and grippy … because 340 days a year they are.

What then to expect from drivers in the UAE, where it rains about five days every two years?

Mayhem.

I woke Monday to a soft, steady rain. Exactly the kind that leaves roads wet for extended stretches, with disastrous consequences.

Governmental agencies in the UAE told The National that more than 600 accidents occurred on the country’s roads (in Dubai and Abu Dhabi) during the first half of the day yesterday. We called it the blackest day on the nation’s roads.

The issues are essentially the same as those in SoCal.

The buildup of oil and grease on roads during the long rainless months; the automobile as the preferred method of transportation; lots of drivers who have no idea how to drive on wet roads; and lots of drivers going as fast as they can, same as usual, because the idea of getting wherever you can as fast as you can is a deeply imbedded in the fiber of the region.

The roads here, because of the lack of rain, are astonishingly grimy. Many people in the UAE ask visitors to their homes to take off their shoes … not out of some oriental-style sense of decorum, but because the roads are gooey and some of the sidewalks are, too, and you never know who just stepped in a particularly adhesive patch of goo.

In Abu Dhabi, we had essentially zero rain in nearly two years, and a bit of steady drizzle created a film of water atop oil that made for instant hydroplaning.

Authorities said most accidents could be traced to tailgating. Like in SoCal, drivers here refuse to grasp the concept that following distances need to increase significantly when it rains.

Another way to look at this, I suppose, is that in SoCal it rains often enough that people should know they need to adjust to it. But in the UAE rain is so rare that it perhaps is unfair to expect anyone to be able to drive in it. Though 630 accidents in half a day perhaps ought to lodge in everyone’s minds.

At any rate, as 630 accidents in about seven hours demonstrates, we in the UAE have no idea about drivin’ in the rain.