The temporary traffic law

In the final days before leaving office, Marouf Bakhit’s cabinet issued a temporary traffic law. Ostensibly, it is meant to toughen punishments on traffic violations. However, it might be yet another gambit to collect more money, as Hilmi Asmar (Addustour) concludes.

According to the constitution, temporary laws can be issued only under dire situations when parliament is not in session. There has been no massive increase in traffic violations, accidents or fatalities. There was nothing “urgent” that could not have waited until parliament convened. If this issue was so urgent, why wasn’t it presented to the previous parliament?

The media initially concentrated on the tougher punishments, largely in the form of (much) higher fines. It turns out that there is more to it. Whole classes of vehicles that used to register as private vehicles now have to register as commercial vehicles, requiring (of course) much higher registration fees. Gas distributors are threatening to raise prices, and manufacturing companies are implicitly threatening to let go of workers who need to be transported from distant areas. It is not obvious why the new registration rules will lower traffic accidents.

Traffic violations are a significant problem in Jordan, and there is nothing wrong with punishing reckless drivers. However, not all fatalities are from reckless drivers. Often, pedestrians are reckless, and drivers run into them because they shoot into traffic from behind blind spots or in areas where it is impossible to slow down. In these areas, pedestrian bridges are often built to solve the problem. Pedestrians insist on ignoring them, endangering themselves and other people using the road. In case they have an accident, the law always places blame on the driver, no matter what the circumstance.

Therefore, if the true intention was to lower deaths on the road, it would have been useful to reevaluate the law whereby a driver is held to blame even if somebody jumps off of a building onto his parked car. Of course, how can the government milk people that way?

Adnan Badran tried a similar gimmick of passing four laws unconstitutionally before leaving office. At the time, the parliament swiftly rejected these laws out of hand. Let’s hope the new parliament has the same inclinations.