Saudi 'drifter' sentenced to death by beheading
A middle-aged man in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to execution by public beheading after killing two people while ‘drifting’ his car, Reuters reports.
The man, who identified himself to police as “Mutannish,” which is Arabic for “he who ignores,” was engaging in a particularly reckless form of outlaw driving that is popular in the Kingdom and locally known as “Hagwalah.”First off, they're talking about the kind of drifting one does in a car, where you control how the car skids to facilitate faster turns - not the kind of drifting done by the Man with No Name. Secondly, I'm sorry, but if you're "middle aged" and still playing stupid tricks in your car, well... (wait, I got ticketed just a couple years ago for "harsh and objectionable noise" - tire squeal).
The crux of the issue, though, is that his screwing around in his car cost two people their lives. Now, it's certainly involuntary manslaughter, in that he didn't deliberately set out to kill anyone, but the simple fact is that two people died that absolutely shouldn't have. Now, if they were spectators at this event there's an assumed risk, so it's a little different than the family crossing the street at the wrong time, but still.
There's mention of another case where a negligent driver killed someone and was sentenced to death by beheading. He wound up getting a reduced sentence:
In 2005, a naval officer who killed three people in a similar accident was sentenced to death, but had the punishment reduced to 3,000 lashes and 20 years in prison.That's a helluva lot stiffer penalty than we serve in MA for killing someone while driving drunk...
And say what you want about harsh penalties, but their recividism rate has gotta be close to zero...
That is all.
8 comments:
"...And say what you want about harsh penalties, but their recividism rate has gotta be close to zero..."
Nail....Head.....
To be fair, their drifters are a bit more hard core than ours
http://jalopnik.com/5842192/watch-assault-rifle+wielding-saudis-endanger-dozens-in-craziest-driving-video-ever
"I spend hours each day sifting through videos of people doing insane stunts with cars. This video of a few Saudis darting in-and-out of traffic while firing assault rifles into the air tops them all. It's reckless. it's horrible. It's scary as hell. It's also damn impressive."
How many times was he re-elected after Chappaquiddick?
P.J. O'Rourke remarked about Saudi Arabia that (and I'm paraphrasing, here...) "You can not only leave your keys in the car, you can leave your wallet and watch on the dashboard. And I don't know what they cut off of panhandlers, but they need to look into it in New York City..."
It would be difficult to tell if most Arab drivers are drifting or just driving normally.
If you add into Mrs Saudi only gets to drive when she goes across the causeway in Bahrain, it becomes doubley difficult.
They truely believe that all accidents are the will of God and so can not be avoided.
Gerry
Heh! Yeah, being dead does cut down on one's recidivism rate.
Theres nothing faster about drifting... :-D
"They truely believe that all accidents are the will of God and so can not be avoided."
Must be why they disdain the use of seatbelts.
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