The death of a bystander and injuries to many others in Al Areen last week by a maverick youth out to display his flashy car and driving tricks on the road is a sad case but alas not the first in Bahrain nor the last. Once his racing car spun out of control and ploughed into the crowd watching his antics, a number of parked cars were also damaged.
Having wreaked the havoc and leaving death and destruction in his wake the culprit driver managed to flee, only to caught by police later; we do not know if he was repentant.
Since the outlying and somewhat remote areas in Bahrain have comparatively low and sometimes hardly any traffic on the highways, some young owners of expensive and powerful cars consider that as an invitation to indulge their passion for speed, in tandem with some driving manoeuvres they can show off, if they can spot an audience.
This needs to stop. Law alone cannot control wayward behaviour among the young drivers. There has to be a realization of the sense of danger and risk among them which can only be cultivated by their families as they are growing up. And those among the audience should also look at them and their risky twists and turns with alarm, apprehension and disgust rather than with admiration.
Another dimension of this menace is the display of similar tendencies by drivers even as they are moving down the inner-city roads or inhabited areas. Many of us have noticed that smart driver weaving in and out of traffic like a lizard or a reptile not so much to get ahead of others whenever he can find a chink but for the fun of it, scaring and endangering the law-abiding drivers in his wake.
Some of their two-wheeler ‘siblings’ on the contrary have this tendency to suddenly take to driving on just the rear wheel. Wonder whether they are learning to become circus performers and find the highways their best learning grounds.
The habit of good driving and following the traffic rules has to be inculcated among the youth from early own by their parents and peers. And for that the latter have to first set an example themselves. Remember that in a majority of cases it is the youth who are to blame for rash driving and disastrous consequences.