Young people showing off in automobiles are by no means something that is unique to the Kingdom. Throughout the Gulf, young men with time on their hands and the keys to powerful cars, whether souped up or bought brand new from an auto lot, indulge in handbrake turns, drag races and speeding around roundabouts.
Many of these youths would argue that what they are doing is harmless fun. Well fun it may be, but harmless it most certainly is not. Working off youthful exuberance behind the wheel of a vehicle is all too often a short cut to the graveyard, for some innocent passer-by or other motorist, if not for the young driver himself.
Ten days ago, Eastern Province traffic police nabbed over 200 students who were taking part in drag racing. They confiscated the vehicles in which these young men were misbehaving. The police are to be congratulated on their firm and effective action in a campaign to clamp down on this sort of foolish and dangerous behavior. It should also be noted that some of the students arrested were later released, so that they could go and sit exams. What sort of final revision these individuals were doing, the night before they were due to be tested, can be well imagined. Unfortunately for these young fools, there is no qualification to be earned from doing a handbrake turn.
Equally unfortunately, police cannot be everywhere. Youths staging contests of speed and daring on public roads are becoming ever-more sophisticated in their attempts to avoid arrest. People are posted a mile or two up all the approach roads to where the “events” are being staged. Using powerful hand-held radios as they sit in innocuous-looking automobiles, the job of these guards is to warn race organizers of any approaching police cars or vehicles with plain-clothes officers. Therefore, by the time the authorities reach the site, it is likely that the event will have broken up, spectators and competitors alike will be driving off and all that will be left, will be the marks of burned rubber in the tarmac.
Indeed snubbing their noses to the police is one of the extra pleasures to be gained from doing dangerous tricks and games in an automobile. There may be those who are now responsible and respected members of society, who will remember that they themselves perhaps behaved with similar irresponsibility and disrespect for motoring laws and other road users. That memory should not however prompt any indulgence of today’s motorized hooligans. For a start, even 20 years ago, automobiles were generally less powerful. Moreover, there were a lot less of them on our roads.
It may sound kill joy, but this sort of dangerous conduct on public roads can no longer be tolerated. If young people want to show off their driving prowess to each other and their friends, then let them organize an event in the countryside, with proper safety precautions and where the only people likely to be killed or seriously injured, are the participants themselves. If setting up such an event seems like too much effort and a lot less fun, then that is their problem. A public road cannot be used as a racetrack nor an arena for stunt driving.
There is a wider point here. Young people are obtaining their licenses and clambering behind the wheel of motor vehicles, with little or no understanding of the craft and responsibilities of sound driving. A good driver is a safe driver, who watches the road ahead carefully, drives defensively rather than aggressively and recognizes the automobile he is driving for what it really is, in irresponsible hands, and that is, a lethal weapon. There needs to be a nationwide clampdown on under-age drivers and young people who think that it is fun to speed like Formula One Racing heroes or behave as if the road outside their windscreen was some sort of on-line gaming experience.
In short young drivers caught for serious motoring offenses, should be forced to attend demanding driver training courses. Maybe obliging them to look at pictures of the sort of fatal or serious injuries caused in car wrecks might drive home to them the selfishness and danger of their past bad driving. If, even after one of these courses, a driver refuses to reform and continues to behave idiotically on the road, then a long driving ban and a hefty fine should be imposed by the courts. If even that does not work, then the only option left will be prison. It is not simply that young drivers need to be protected from themselves. The rest of us need protecting from them as well.
A deadly motoring game
