- JEDDAH: The recently implemented Saher automatic traffic monitoring system has one feature that you might not be aware of.
- In addition to automatically ticketing car-owners once their vehicles are photographed violating traffic rules (especially speed limits) the system has made more efficient the tracking of past overdue fines, as well as the linking of those overdue fines to other government services.
According to a report in a daily newspaper on Sunday, one Saudi learned a harsh lesson in this regard. Jeddah resident Naif Al-Khaseif discovered that he would not be able to acquire a marriage license until he pays a huge back-log of unpaid traffic violations spanning the years since he began driving as a teenager.
His years of operating a private livery service (and countless tickets) has led to a huge amount of debt. He learned that he was so far in the hole that he would need to raise SR150,000 to pay these fines just to be considered broke.