This beats my $150 speeding fine
Don’t get caught in speeding in Jeddah
JEDDAH, 20 July 2006 — At the police station they registered my name and time of entry. It was 5.10 p.m. I was searched and deprived of my cigarettes, then escorted to a jail cell. This would be my home for the next 24 hours. My charge? Driving 160 kilometers per hour down Jeddah’s Madinah Road.The law says you spend at least 24 hours in a jail cell and your car gets impounded for getting caught exceeding the speed limit. If you can’t pay the fine — SR500 (AUD 177)for speeding — then you get the pleasure of an additional 48 hours in the cage. (You also pay SR150 later to get your car out of impound.) Wonder what happens when you rack up 12 points?
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I’m glad someone knows the law in Saudi.
When one incurred a traffic fine in Riyadh, only the brave paid in person, as doing so might or might not incur a trip to the pokey. The incarceration and the length of it were at the whim of the warden. The usual method of payment involved commissioning a Saudi to do it for you.
However, the truly brave were those who did not pay. After the cop wrote you a ticket in Saudi nothing else happened – no letters, summons etc. Your problem began when you wanted to renew your residence permit, re-register your car etc or, most scarey of all – leave the country. This was because your failure to pay was in the government computer system.
Thus, when you attempted to get through immigration on departure, the system would show the unpaid fine. As there were no facilities to pay it at the airport you were snookered. I was fined on one occasion and for the rest of my tour in Saudi, I kept the receipt for the fine in my wallet. If one’s payment had not been processed through the computer system, the receipt would (hopefully) get you through.
I did not know if the public library I used was linked into the system but I never took the chance – I always returned borrowed books on time.
The system had a lot going for it – too bad we don’t have something similar here.
The problem in Saudi is basically one of enforcement for any sort of financial bill. There are no real postal addresses. Houses aren’t numbered and there are no postman. If you really want mail, you get a post box. Plus there are creative ways to name yourself and sometimes people go by a number of different versions (son of, father of, etc). The locals have real trouble getting credit cards (as opposed to debit cards) because it’s hard to find the cardholder and get them to pay the bill. Mobile phones are mostly prepaid. So when it comes to any sort of government imposed fine, they end up having to be paid on the spot or they take you or your vehicle into custody.
The worst situation is an accident involving death. If someone dies in a car accident, regardless of fault, the person who “caused the death” (or had a significant part in it, like being in the car) is liable for blood money. Basically compensation for the death of the person. Fault very, very rarely comes into it. You simply owe the dead person’s family money. You don’t leave jail until it is paid. I’m a bit hazy on how they calculate the blood money, but I believe that the importance of the individual has something to do with it. Regardless though, the usual amount start in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and get up towards the millions. I think the King has mandated the limit. Westerners generally take out insurance to cover the blood money — the locals not so much. It still takes time though and most Westerners would probably spend at least 24 hours in jail before the blood money gets paid. Incidentally, the ADF pays blood money in Iraq under the same principle. It’s why we are paying money to the families of those we shot in that trade Minister incident, even though it was their fault. For blood money, it doesn’t matter.
Thought you might be interested by that.
Thanks guys, I find it very interesting. Having served in the Army early 60s thru late 80s my experience is SE Asia more than the ME. As an aside I nearly got there in ’73 when Gough got it in his head to help the Israelis and I got to work one Monday morning to be told I’d be in Tel Aviv by the weekend. For once I entertained warm thoughts about our Great Leader but when I got to the RAP they informed me they had lost my International Health Card (IHC) after my recent return from Thailand and I would have to have ALL my shots again. On Friday morning I had about a dozen shots spread over both arms. Later that afternoon, possibly after someone had told our Great Leader that the Israelis probably didn’t need our help, I was stood down; my ‘warm feelings’ reverted to standard ‘contempt’ and with both arms virtually immobilized I couldn’t even raise a beer to my mouth to wash out the taste of dissappointment.
Of course, SE Asia has it’s idiosyncrosies as well. In Thailand some months earlier I had a pistol rammed in my guts when I pushed through a crowd to cross a street. It appeared King Bhumibol was on the way back from the movies and when en route all traffic and pedestrians were halted. Fair enough, I thought, and often wondered whether HRH noticed a tall westerner standing in some kind of strange salute with both hands in the air. I tend to stand out like a totem poll in a crowd of Thais…it’s a height thing. I was later allowed to pass after I explained that I truely respected HRH but was only an ignorant farang and just didn’t know the rules.
Service abroad…great wasn’t it?