JEDDAH, 11 June 2006 — A high-ranking police official has stated that driving laws indiscriminately apply to all drivers regardless of who they are, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.
Col. Muhammad Al-Qahtani made the remarks while commenting on the case of the son of a senior traffic official who was stopped by Jeddah police while joyriding in front of a girls’ school in the city.
Al-Qahtani said the youth was treated like any other offender and stayed in jail for 24 hours. The incident caught public attention when the youngster’s father, the head of the traffic police in Madinah, sent a request to his counterpart in Jeddah asking him to double his son’s jail term.
With an aim of tackling joy riders driving in front of schools during the exam period, the traffic police had increased the number of patrols in unidentified vehicles. Al-Qahtani said that in recent weeks 41 offenders had been arrested and that most of the culprits were not students but rather youths showing off their driving skills to schoolgirls.
Al-Qahtani stressed that because of the increased measures the number of people committing traffic crimes had decreased considerably compared to previous years.
Measures recently adopted by the police include increased patrols in front of girls’ schools and other places where joy riders were likely to appear. Residents living close to schools generally complain about joy riders during exam times.
According to a secondary school teacher, several teachers had expressed concern over the reckless and irresponsible behavior of students during the last days of examinations. Recent reports spoke about how students who underachieved in exams would vandalize teachers’ cars. Many teachers would come to school in taxis or park their cars away from school premises.
A number of students, on the other hand, explained that they felt impelled to joy ride as a way of letting off steam to express their joy or anger at difficult questions. Many of the joy riders also said they were driven by a desire to imitate scenes from movies.
