In a five-hour traffic law enforcement effort in Riyadh last month, officers issued 10,271 tickets. Yes, that’s right — ten thousand two hundred and seventy one.
Riyadh’s Traffic Department Director Lt. Col. Abdul Rahman Al-Muqbil hailed the results as positive and said the department would do it again in the near future. Traffic officials consider the outcome positive while in reality it should be viewed as a major shortcoming on the part of the department. Imagine — it lasted from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m., involved 1,200 officers and issued 10,271 tickets for traffic violations. The violators were all randomly stopped. And yet, the whole thing is called a success.
If this is so with something that lasted only five hours, what would have happened if the operation had lasted for two weeks and involved twice the number of officers? Definitely, the result would have been violations counted, not in the hundreds of thousands but in the millions.
The picture is abundantly clear: We are faced with a major problem when it comes to traffic safety. A quick check of violations shows they are of every kind — cars sought by the police for various reasons, stolen cars, cars in a state of advanced dilapidation which are allowed on the roads, cars operated by underage drivers, cars with expired registration and license plates, speeding cars, cars which have run red lights, drivers not using seatbelts, incorrect parking. Nothing is left out.
A great many of these violations can be blamed on the Traffic Department for failing to do its proper job and enforce the law. The present system helps and even encourages people to commit violations as is evident from violations relating to driving license, vehicle registration, underage drivers, car thefts and rattletraps cluttering our roads. All of these and many others are the direct responsibility of the traffic authorities.
Fix the system administratively and technically at both the local and national levels and the numbers of violations are sure to drop sharply. We would be left only with violations relating to the conduct of drivers. It might be easier for traffic cops to wait at traffic lights and mount checkpoints, issuing tickets and collecting huge fines. It seems to be quite difficult for the officers to put an end to the slaughter on our roads and stop the madness of drivers who continue to pose serious dangers to all of us.
