The “Saher” national safe driving campaign in which Riyadh has become one of the first cities in the Kingdom to see police cameras erected along busy routes is reducing traffic accidents but also feeding a black market for technology that claims to enable drivers to escape the attention of authorities, according to Al-Watan Arabic daily. The newspaper reported on Thursday that beneath the counters of car accessory shops are devices that purport to warn motorists of approaching cameras. Another option is the “Saher Spray Nozzle” which claims to prevent cameras capturing photographs of vehicle number plates. Ignoring traffic authority warnings, some motorists, determined to avoid driving responsibly, have turned to traditional methods such as changing their number plates, covering them up, or simply removing them altogether. Others have become more organized, as evidenced last week by the circulation of emails identifying the sites of some of the capital's cameras in order to warn fellow lawbreakers. One young man told Al-Watan that he regularly “raised his number plates” – a swift adjustment reportedly possible on some older makes of vehicles – to make them unidentifiable to cameras when he “planned to exceed the speed limit”. According to Riyadh motorist Ali Al-Musaili, the capital's youth have greeted the ‘Saher' traffic campaign with “dismay”. “They're using any means they can to beat the system, removing plates or covering them over, and I even saw one who had covered his plate with a piece of paper on which he had basically written a challenge to Saher officials to catch him if they can,” Al-Musaili said. Shop assistants say they have been inundated with requests for the “Saher Nozzle Spray”. “It's a spray which leaves a kind of transparent insulating layer of residue on the plate and reflects back the flash of cameras making them unable to capture the license number,” said one dealer. The spray, which dealers say is illegal and only sold to regular trusted patrons, costs SR12,000 for a single can. One shop assistant told Al-Watan, however, that a spray legally available on the market for SR35 performed the task equally well. “It is used to prevent dust and sand coming into contact with the front of the car, but lots of young guys are using it to prevent their license plates being photographed,” the assistant said. Despite the youthful enthusiasm to defy to measures to curb dangerous driving, Riyadh locals say that Saher is having the desired effect. “I've begun to notice a change, with a lot more drivers heeding regulations,” said Abdullah Al-Harbi. “There are fewer drivers jumping lights and fewer breaking speed limits.” The view is reportedly backed up by statistics, with a source at Riyadh Traffic telling Al-Watan that not a single death due to speeding had been recorded since the launch of Saher in the capital. “Traffic Police chiefs met on Tuesday to study new sites for Saher cameras,” the source said. “The national traffic program will continue. There is no intention of bringing it to an end.” Any attempts to defy the safety measures are strongly discouraged, and Traffic Police chief Abdulrahman Al-Muqbil has previously warned law-evading motorists against being taken in by expensive claims. “There is no such ‘nozzle' that can hide license plates,” Al-Muqbil warned in a press statement. “People who try to buy this sort of thing have not the least discipline, and the Saher project conducts continuous tests of the system taking into account any new information and developments in these areas.”
