In implementation of the directives of His Highness the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Interior announced a few days ago that strict legal measures were taken to tighten penalties for traffic violations and accidents that lead to severe injuries or deaths, in light of the increasing accidents and violations in a disturbing way in the recent period.
In the first six months of 2025 alone, more than 2,300 traffic cases were registered, some of which were tragic results, and resulted in the loss of lives and severe injuries, as revealed by the head of the Traffic Prosecution, the Attorney General, Counselor Sheikh Nayef bin Abdul Rahman Al Khalifa, during his talk to the newspaper “Al -Watan”.
Whoever wanders in the streets of the Kingdom notes the repetition of the same violations: the use of the phone while driving, the wrong violation, and the review of vehicles in public streets. These violations, which are monitored by civilian patrols scattered in different regions, have become part of a dangerous daily scene that is not without recklessness.
In one of the accidents, the transgression of an urgent driver led as if the “world is flying” – as it describes the public – to an eloquent accident. In another scene, a reckless driver took the emergency path as a brief path, ending with the death of an innocent person who was in the wrong place and the wrong time ..
The worrying is that these actions are no longer confined to rare cases, but have become a usual behavior for some who believe that a violation of 20 dinars is not the end of the world, and that if not monitored, it did not happen at all.
The danger is in this prevailing belief that lack of control means escaping, which nourishes the culture of repetition and recklessness.
Many scenes that reflect this mentality: a driver deliberately presses the brakes in front of another car on a highway, another that operates the opposite of the walk without indifference, and others who see the road is an arena for provocation or “psychological discharge”, without regard to the lives of others.
Tightening penalties is a pivotal and necessary step, but real deterrence also needs a wider activation of monitoring, especially in the inner streets and neighborhoods that some think is “out of censorship.” Many behaviors begin small: transcending in a neighborhood, or wrong wrap in a roundabout, and later turns into a disaster on a fast street or a crowded intersection.
Cameras, periodicals, and immediate follow -up, are not only control tools, but messages that the prestige of the law is no longer optional, and that the public street is not an arena for personal experiences or settling accounts at the expense of lives.
What is required today is not only amending the laws, but to consolidate the concept of responsibility for drivers.
Whoever does not witness an accident, he hears stories, in which people have lost their loved ones because of the recklessness of others. Setting on minor violations is what produces major disasters.
Yes, the legal deterrent is important, but the most important thing is that we all believe that every violation – no matter how simple it seems – carries a possibility of a tear, loss, or a tragedy that will not be forgotten.
