As July dragged on, I thought I noticed a change.

The Abu Dhabi gridlock … seemed to be unlocking.

It hasn’t taken as long to get from Point A to Point B here in town. Or so it seemed to me.

And now we seem to have actual evidence … at least anecdotal … explaining why that might be.

Everyone who can … has left town.

Well, actually,  everyone who can … has left the country. For points north. Or south. Either direction, as long as it takes you away from the equator and promises more temperate weather.

The wealthiest folks here, most of them UAE citizens, seem to prefer Europe. France and England, in particular. Lots of flights out of airports here to northwest Europe. Well, and Switzerland, too. Want to go to Zurich? We have a nonstop out of Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

Most of the expats, too, make a point of using their vacation days (or “holidays”, as we call them in this British-English country) during the summer. It really makes no sense to be gone in November through March because the weather is almost temperate here, and cold in Europe, or even Turkey. And perfect sense to be gone in the summer, when school is out, as well.

Anyway, this town has emptied out … a bit. It’s not as if I can walk out the front door of the building in which we’re house-sitting and not see a thousand people in 100 yards. That hasn’t changed. But once you get on the roads, where people who have enough money to buy cars would normally be seen … yes, fewer people are out there.

What finally convinced me of this, that it was real and not just my imagination, was our hard-working taxi driver, Benjamin.

Benjamin is smart and diligent, and he generally has no trouble making his “minimum” daily quota of 300 dirhams (about $80). He has a handful of regular customers (like us) who have agreed to pay him extra in exchange for scheduled pickups, and he works long hours, and that usually leaves him in good stead.

But he has told us that so many people are gone that cabbies are having trouble racking up even $80 in fares. In a 12-hour day.

“Everyone is gone,” Benjamin said. “If they can, people leave. Too many taxis, not enough people.”

So it’s not just my imagination. As I sit here, house-sitting for a family gone for three months … it has struck me: some folks have left for the summer. And diminished traffic is one of the handful of upsides to these three hottest months.