Comment: Is valet parking safe in Dubai?
Before I left the UK’s shores I wouldn’t have even considered handing my car keys to a total stranger, to leave my precious vehicle in his custody for several hours.
But valet parking in the Middle East is so widespread and so seemingly convenient that – in the few months I’ve been here – I’ve been lulled into the ritual. On a regular basis, someone else gets to drive my pride and joy as I swan into various business meetings and events at Dubai’s hotels without so much as a backwards glance.
And my car’s not even that special. Not compared to some of the high-performance metalwork on show in the UAE. Ferraris, Bugattis, McLarens. Maseratis, Bentleys and Rolls Royces by the dozen. As a bona fide petrol head, I’d love to get behind the wheel of some of these supercars, even if only to trundle them round from the hotel lobby to the parking lot.
I know I’d be nervous and careful in the driver’s seat of someone else’s million-dollar motor. I’m sure I could resist the temptation to spin the wheels, perform donuts in the car park, test the quarter mile acceleration in between the speed cameras on Sheik Zayed Road or cruise JBR’s The Walk.
And I’m even more certain that professional valets take pride in their ability to return their customer’s cars in the same condition in which they received them. Don’t they?
Perhaps I was a little too casual in embracing the region’s valet parking tradition. I didn’t bother to research where the liabilities lie if my car is pranged. And I certainly didn’t note the mileage, photograph the bodywork and make an inventory of glovebox contents. That doesn’t look as cool as tossing your keys to the valet en route to a swanky lunch appointment.
But now I have reason to regret my laissez-faire attitude.
Following a very pleasant, if expensive family afternoon tea in a high-end Dubai hotel (which shall remain nameless), my car was returned to me by a valet. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a black mark on the rear wheel-arch, gave it a quick wipe with my finger, saw that it came off and assumed it was just dirt. There were other cars waiting impatiently behind me so I ushered the kids into the back, hurried into the cockpit and pulled away.
Only when I got home did I properly check the bodywork and, once I cleaned it up, discovered a small dent and paintwork rash. Someone had scuffed the car, probably in a parking accident.
What could I do? I was certain the damage hadn’t been there when I’d left the car with the valet, but I had no proof. So I called the hotel’s concierge and asked them to investigate.
Several weeks later the situation is this. The hotel claims it has high-resolution digital CCTV footage of my car arriving at the hotel with the dent clearly visible.
You know what? – it’s possible, and I’m perfectly willing to apologise for making a fuss, if it is the case. But after originally promising to do so, the hotel won’t send me a still of the video due to data protection “security protocols”. And that makes me suspicious.
Whose data is being protected by not showing me a picture of my own car?
A little more email toing and froing and I have since been invited for coffee with the hotel’s GM to discuss the matter (I guess they’ve twigged my job title). But I don’t want special treatment. I’d just like quickly to clear up the question of whether the hotel’s valet or someone else damaged my car.
In the meantime, I’ve gone right off the idea of valet parking. I don’t appreciate the fact that sometimes my carefully selected seat settings have been adjusted, or that sometimes the driver’s questionable body odour lingers longer than I’d like. Or that occasionally I have to wait for 15 minutes for my car to be delivered back to me. And that when it is returned I’m going to have to circle it carefully like a car rental agent with a clipboard.
No – it’s self-parking for me from now on. Unless I’m running late. Or there are no spaces. Or it’s really hot.
Bio: Robert Willock is the editorial director for ITP Business' Construction, Design, Energy & Hospitality Groups.