Overheard in the Souk the grapevine

In a society that is prone to rant about everything, it must also take time to recognise good work. Of late, the traffic police have mobilised themselves like never before on the highways and byways of Kuwait bringing much needed order on our roadways and curbing the urge within many drivers to be reckless. It is a welcome sight to behold policemen intervening in different scenarios from directing traffic on busy crossroads so easily prone to gridlocks to a recently observed handson approach in helping the drivers facing car trouble. It is very satisfying to have

these sightings of actual public service.

It is an unusual sight, but very common in the Gulf Cooperation Council state of Kuwait. Although the same may be said of other GCC countries, motorists are often seen getting out of their car when told to pull over by police from the General Traffic Department either for committing a traffic violation or if a motorist gives reason for suspicion.

Normally the trend in other countries is when a motorist is asked to pull over a traffic policeman walks over to the person behind the wheel and demands to see personal documents including the driver’s licence and the car registration.

In Kuwait it is not known if the policeman prefers the motorist to walk over to him or simply the motorists are too scared and prefer to walk to the man in uniform as a sign of goodwill… Whatever the case, this is widely seen on Kuwaiti roads.

Even though the recent meeting between the government and the Parliament to discuss the effect of the increase of fuel prices ended by approving a subsidy to citizens who have driver license with KD 7 of fuel ration card, which represent only 30 percent on of the increase, the response from this approval was not welcomed by citizens and many lawmakers because the effect still exist.

Some lawmakers who are furious to this subsidy, have announced their intention to grill a competent minister about this issue, vowing to hold him accountable for not doing enough to exempt citizens from the repercussions of the fuel price increase. They believe that the government has broken its promise that the increase will not affect other commodities and citizens.

In general, people already believe that the increase in the fuel prices will not spare its consequence and impact on anybody including citizens and expatriates.

The increase in the fuel price has already having its toll on every aspect of our lives and that is why some see it as irrelevant to keep on talking about the effect than talking about cancelling the increase itself.