JEDDAH, 1 April 2007 — Saudi citizen Ali Hatim has first-hand knowledge in confronting the Saudi bureaucracy. He discovered that on his record was a traffic violation for having an expired license but in fact his driver’s license was still valid. He tried to dispute the claim.
“The system was designed to go in a circle,” he said, describing the experience of contesting something on his driving record. “I demanded an explanation on the where and when of this ticket but my request was ignored by the traffic officials.”
In a report recently in the daily Al-Watan, people said that disputing items that appear on their driving records is essentially pointless, ineffective and more of a bother than its worth.
“I discovered a traffic ticket on my record, that I allegedly ran a red light in Buraidah. I’ve never been to Buraidah in my life,” said Abdul Rahman Al-Zahrani, referring to the city located about 300 km northwest of Riyadh. “The official I spoke to said he figured some traffic cop was trying to meet his quota of tickets and just filled in my name randomly. Who holds these guys accountable?”
People are encouraged to simply pay whatever the state says they owe, because to get or renew licenses, passports and iqamas, citizens and residents must clear their pending violations.
Disputing these violations means delaying other important paperwork. In most cases, the path of least resistance is simply to pay up.
Stores abound of people getting speeding tickets even when they don’t own or drive a car. Even women — who are legally barred from operating vehicles in the Kingdom — have found traffic violations on their record.
Another Saudi, Khaled Al-Amri, says the fundamental problem is that there is no effective dispute mechanism in place. He said that when he went to finalize some government paperwork for his wife, he discovered she had three traffic violations on her record.
“In the first place: Women don’t drive in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “Secondly, officials simply ignore reason. I ended up paying my wife’s traffic tickets because it was useless disputing it.”
However, Capt. Muhammad Al-Muqbil, an official at the Traffic Department, had a simple explanation for the issue of women getting traffic violations on their record.
“Some cars are registered under women’s names and traffic tickets are often given to the person under whose name the vehicle is registered,” he said.
Al-Muqbil said procedures are in place to dispute traffic violations. “Those who did receive traffic tickets unjustly should complain to the department in the city where it was given and the violation will be dropped,” he said.
Some, however, disagree that it’s this simple.
