I’m fairly sure I know who would win a vote for “most annoying person in Abu Dhabi.” And in a landslide.

The woman whose voice scolds/warns taxi drivers when they are speeding. Whoever she is.

These are the words you hate to hear:

“Please slow down. You are crossing the speed limit.”

That’s it. The whole message. But I still would like to shout at the possessor of that voice. And I can hardly imagine what cab drivers would like to do (a literal gag order, maybe) to her. Or it, because it might even be computer-generated.

Yes, people here drive too fast. Fatal driving accidents are a significant killer here. But there are times when the various speed limits are low … so low that non-taxi traffic is likely to fly past you left and right, which is plenty dangerous, too.

First, the Big Brother aspect of this. If I understand this correctly, TransAD, the government entity that oversees the eight (I think it is) cab companies in the emirate of  Abu Dhabi (the biggest emirate of the seven-emirate UAE) … has all sorts of hardware installed in cabs. They know where every cab is and what the speed limit happens to be for that spot on the road. They can monitor each cab’s speed, as the woman’s voice notes. They keep details of every fare. I am led to believe they also can tell when a cab has been pulled over and the driver is not working.

So, the whole process is pretty invasive. But it’s the “Please slow down” lady who is infuriating.

In the city, the speed limit is generally 60 kph — about 37 mph. In the suburbs it gets up to 80 kph and on the freeways it’s 120 kph (74.6 mph). Which seem like decent speeds, except that on the freeways, especially, which are generally straight, wide and (aside from a few choke points) almost empty. Locals routinely do 90, 95, 100 mph on the freeways to, say, Al Ain or Dubai. And it’s really not an issue– as long as you don’t rear-end some cab creeping along because of That Lady.

Here’s what happens:

Your cabbie touches the high side of the limit. An annoying beeping sound begins to come out of a speaker somewhere near the meter box. “Beep-beep-beep-beep …”

After maybe a dozen of those, if the cabbie hasn’t immediately backed down under the limit again, The Voice is triggered, and she always says the same thing, at the same pace, in every cab in the city, every time you’re 1 kph over the limit for more than, say, five seconds.

“Please slow down. You are crossing the speed limit.”

The Voice is not a pleasant one. Pitched high in the female range. Vaguely nasal. The R sound comes out a little like an Elmer Fudd-like W. Sounds human, but maybe it’s not.

And it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.

The Voice has been part of my life, of late. I’ve made, let’s see, 10 taxi rides of more than an hour over the past month and change, and when a cabbie is trying to keep pace with traffic — or just trying to get to where you’re going — he’s crossing the limit again and again (because going 119 kph, exactly, and not 121, is very tricky) … so I hear the beeps and The Voice.

Sometimes, I am trying to nap in the back seat. Then come the beeps and The Voice, and I’m awake again.

I am sick to death of that voice, and I think we at The National need to do a story on it. Is it a real person? Do we all wish she would go fly a kite? Is it a computer-generated voice? And, if so, what kind of sick, twisted programmer came up with that?

“Please slow down. You are crossing the speed limit.”

Ack!