The driving license is a piece of documentation that police officers use to ensure that a person knows how to drive. In bygone days, driving licenses used to be a mandatory requirement that nobody would dare to drive without one. As soon as they would expire, people would rush to renew them. Acquiring one’s driving license used to be more important than owning a car; in fact most people obtained licenses before even thinking of buying a car.
That was a time in history when people respected traffic rules and had a genuine concern for the lives of other people. Police officers used to have the power to discipline offenders on our roads and streets.
In the past few years, driving licenses have become a distant memory. They are no longer essential for people to drive. The number of motorists who possess driving licenses is much less than the number of those who don’t. Look carefully when you stop at a traffic light in one of the main roads and see how many children and teenagers are behind the wheel. They cause countless accidents and break rules and regulations all the time. Legally, these youngsters are not old enough to drive cars or obtain driving licenses. Then what’s the problem?
These youngsters not only drive within the cities or villages that they reside in, but they also travel from one city or town to another. How could their parents leave them to play with people’s lives? They run red lights, they drive in the opposite direction and sometimes you see them racing on busy roads jeopardizing people’s lives and property. They are responsible for millions of violations that cause deadly accidents and fatal injuries leaving many people disabled for the rest of their life.
The number of these young drivers will keep increasing as long as they don’t need driving licenses and they have confidence that no police officer will stop or question them. Then why do we rush into renewing our driving licenses when we are mature and old enough to be responsible of our own driving?
I come across thousands of cars on a daily basis. When I see them I think they are moving without drivers but when I look closely I figure out that there is a small head behind the steering wheel. How could this small creature possibly be able to control a car? How about if he was driving a jeep or a GMC?
Do the police officers ignore these unlicensed young drivers and thus reinforce the impression that driving licenses are unnecessary to drive cars? Then why does the police department have license divisions?
Do they ignore these young drivers to gain revenue from issuing traffic violation tickets? It is true that the system can earn more money by issuing violation tickets than by having drivers renew or obtain driving licenses, which costs SR500. Do you think the reason behind this is that we have a massive number of cars and streets and a small police force making it very difficult to control things?
The chaotic situation of our roads resembles that of a battlefield. There are no rules or regulations anymore and there is no difference between good or bad drivers. I have also personally experienced the mysterious attitude of policemen not asking or inquiring about driving licenses. In the past 28 years I have only been asked to show my license two or three times.
These irresponsible youngsters know that they can do what they like and get away with it. But I still have hope that our policemen would start paying attention to them and find a solution to stop wasting the lives of many on the road.
