Welcome … but?

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WE welcome the new amendments to the old Traffic Law as they include tougher penalties for each violation. With resentment, we witness violations being committed day and night on our ‘old’ streets.

Both citizens and expatriates — men and women, veiled or unveiled — continue to commit these violations. Everyone violates traffic laws daily, thereby, posing risks to our nerves and lives. Unfortunately, the law enforcement agencies are nowhere to be seen.

We hope the new amendments, which toughened the law, will be a real awakening for the concerned authorities that have slept over the issue for a long time; up to a point where traffic has become a crisis suffered by everybody in our beloved country.

We want to feel that the legal authority has its grip on the necks of those who violate the law by issuing citations to them, so that they do not violate the laws again. We want to see that no one dares to park in an area with yellow-black pavement and a ‘no parking’ sign above it. We want to see our traffic police stopping all frivolities on the road and the use of mobile phones while driving, as we see someone on the phone overtaking us in a tight corner when we are using all our senses to focus on the road.

One of our friends told me that he once saw a driver from a famous Asian country driving while watching clips of long Indian movies and reacting to scenes of laughter and sadness.

Recklessness on our roads has reached this extent for both the expatriates and citizens due to lack of authority to deter them. When you ask, “Who instructed you?” someone will ask you, “Who forbade me”?

We wish to see retired police officers or volunteering citizens monitor traffic offenses and issue citations, similar to what we see in various places in countries like England, France and other advanced countries. In England, such people are called, ‘traffic wardens’, whom we see issuing traffic violation tickets to those who fail to insert the right amount of coins into the parking meters.

What if these wardens come to Kuwait City, as well as its commercial and industrial areas, to issue traffic tickets to those who violate the ‘no-parking’ regulation, millions will definitely go into the ‘shaky’ State treasury, as described recently by the Finance Minister.

To our honorable Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Mohammad Al-Khaled and all officials in his ministry we say; “Bravo, for these amendments and for toughening penalties, although the endorsement is overdue.”

However, the challenge is always the seriousness in enforcing laws, or else, they will end up being ink on paper or they will be implemented in a biased manner.

Email: [email protected]

By Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli – Former Minister of Oil

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