Remember this number: 196,573. It should never be forgotten since it is the number of traffic violations committed in Jeddah in just one month — July 2005. That means 6,552 violations were committed every day — or 273 every hour in the city of Jeddah. If we continue with our calculations, we will see that the city has four traffic violations every minute.
The situation can be looked at from two perspectives if we want to arrive at a reasonable justification for the carnage on our streets. First, it could be that things have gone out of control, with Jeddah experiencing the kind of chaos its streets had never before experienced. Second, it could be that the traffic department has embarked on a massive campaign to try bring some peace and safety to the city streets.
I don’t want to go into further details explaining what the two possibilities could mean to us members of the public. What is more important here is to know the kind of punishments, if any, the traffic authorities imposed on the violators. It should naturally follow from 196,573 violations that there were 196,573 punishments and fines. It would be interesting if each violation was fined only SR100; that alone would have netted the Jeddah Traffic Department the tidy sum of SR19,657,300 in cash for only one month.
The statistics show that during July a total of 28,247 motorists were caught speeding. This is an indication of how dangerous our roads have become. Some major thoroughfares, such as the Madinah Road, have been turned into landing strips. And a number of other streets which are by no stretch of the imagination a major thoroughfare are also being used for take-offs and landings. The end result is the same: Needless death and destruction on our roads and streets.
