Manama: Traffic authorities in Jizan in the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia have arrested the driver of a minibus doing more than 180 kilometres an hour.
The minibus, carrying 12 female students, was spotted by a car driver who made a video clip on his mobile that went viral on social media platforms.
The car driver said that he filmed the speeding minibus in order to report him to the authorities and ensure he does not put people’s lives at risk.
Shifting the mobile camera between the speedometer to show the actual speed and the minibus ahead of him, the car driver was able to eventually catch up with the minibus and record his licence plate.
“When we received the video clip, we formed a small team to follow up on the matter,” the head of traffic in Jizanm Rashed Al Ghamdi, said. “They were able to arrest the school bus driver who admitted that he was speeding even though he was carrying students. The necessary legal measures will be taken against him,” he said, quoted by Saudi news site Sabq on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia traffic authorities have been actively involved in a challenging fight with careless drivers breaking speed limits, imposing a mixture of road awareness campaigns and technology-based punitive action.
Reacting to the video clip. several media users said that they expected the most stringent punishment to be meted out against the reckless minibus driver.
“He should be jailed for a long time and have his driving licence revoked for putting the lives of students and probably other road users at risk,” Lightning Strike, a media user, said.
Hacker, another user, said that the students should have been the first ones to report the driver for endangering their lives.
“The students should have informed their university, families or the traffic authorities,” Hacker said. “They should learn to report any abuses against them and they can easily talk with their teachers or at least their families to help put an end to such dangerous practices.”
One commenter writing under the moniker of EM9977, said that the car driver should also be punished for exceeding the speed limit, even if he was chasing the minibus to record his traffic violation.
“The car driver is himself guilty of driving at a high speed and of using a mobile while driving, and therefore he should be equally punished.”
