RIYADH, 7 January — Saudi Arabia will start issuing driving licenses in a new format from next month.
The new licenses, which are difficult to forge, will be smaller in size, produced by computer-aided technology and contain all personal information about the driver, including his blood group, address and phone numbers for contact, according to Brig. Gen. Fahd Al-Bishr, director general of the Traffic Department.
The new system for issuing licenses will reduce the workload of traffic personnel, Al-Bishr added.
Under the new system, the duration of training to obtain a driving license varies from one category to another. A Saudi national classified in Grade A will be asked to undergo one day’s training, while an expatriate in the same grade will require five days’ training.
According to a conservative estimate, more than 10,000 driving licenses are issued every month in Jeddah and Riyadh alone.
Asked about plans to introduce mandatory insurance for all drivers, Al-Bishr said the Traffic Department is working on this in a move to streamline its operations. The mandatory insurance cover is expected to bring down the number of people in detention because of their inability to pay compensation for damages caused by accidents. It will be a driving license-linked insurance plan under which nobody will be allowed to drive unless he buys an insurance policy from one of the companies specified.
Late last year, the Council of Ministers decided to enforce a mandatory third-party insurance on all vehicles in the country. It also decided not to allow uninsured foreign vehicles to enter the Kingdom. A Cabinet meeting, chaired by Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, authorized the interior minister to execute the new law in stages.
The Shoura Council has earlier endorsed a draft law on compulsory motor insurance, to be applied for the first time in the Kingdom.
Al-Bishr said the insurance scheme will be introduced later this year. Drivers of all vehicles, including private cars, coaches and trucks, entering the Kingdom from neighboring countries will be asked to furnish insurance documents, said Al-Bishr.
The move is intended to address the problems compounded by accident-related deaths, injuries and property loss.
The Kingdom, where only 21 percent of motorists are insured, has one of the highest accident rates in the world. Traffic accidents kill at least 3,000 people and injure more than 26,000 annually and result in a loss of more than SR7 billion.
Al-Bishr said only the National Company for Cooperative Insurance (NCCI) has so far been allowed to issue license-linked policies honored by the Traffic Department. A decision pertaining to other insurance companies is likely to be taken later.
An agreement between the Traffic Department and another insurance firm has failed after the department rejected some 2,000 insurance policies issued by the company. The department said it acted on the directives of the Ministry of Interior.
Al-Bishr said under the new system drivers will no longer be detained in the event of accidents as the insurance policies will serve as their bail guarantors.
Several studies have revealed that most drivers involved in accidents are unable to pay heavy damages. These drivers are jailed until their obligations are met.
However, analysts argue that the absence of comprehensive regulations in the insurance sector might lead to poor performance by the agencies of foreign-registered companies operating in the Kingdom.
