A recent survey on the traffic law found that 67 percent of the respondents support amending it. Thirty percent said the law was acceptable while three percent were neutral, Al Sharq daily reported. A lawyer, who spoke to Al Sharq on the condition of anonymity, said the current law will be reviewed by a committee in the cabinet. This is because the Advisory Council refused to approve it since it had objections to some aspects of the law. The lawyer, however, said that the law has contributed to reducing the number of traffic accidents. In the same context, Nasser Sulaiman Haider, a member of the Advisory Council and a businessman, said the punishments prescribed in some items of the law do not match the offence. The law is also against car rental companies, he said. These firms suffer from traffic violations involving customers and this might affect their services; tourism in Qatar might also be adversely affected, he added. An example of this, he explained, is that the law makes it difficult for car rental firms to prove that a customer had committed traffic violations especially when he has already left the country after a brief stay. Haider further added that some items of the law were not studied well and there was no public awareness campaign prior to its implementation. Giving strict punishments to reduce accidents or deaths is not a reason for implementing the law, he said. These points raised by the Advisory Council were some of the reasons why they disapproved of the law and considered reviewing it. I just wish they had more police enforcing the law and stopping bad drivers.

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