This is despite the fact that Iraqi law imposes severe consequences on any unlicensed driver involved in a serious or deadly accident.
The traffic department in Ninawa has been playing catch up, department head, Nashwan Abdullah al-Khazraji, says. That’s despite the fact that they have issued more than a million drivers’ licenses over the past year.
But because the process is ongoing, there is also an amnesty – and this means that in parts of Iraq like Ninawa, anyone can drive a car without a license. It’s also common to see Iraqi teens driving wildly in their hometowns and cities - there simply isn’t any enforcement of traffic laws.
The head of the Ninawa’s traffic directorate, Nashwan Abdullah al-Khazraji, estimated that about half a million driver’s licenses have been applied for.
This has involved the following process for locals, he told NIQASH: first the applicant registers their information on the department’s website, then they’re given a serial number and an appointment to come for a vision test and a driving test.
By the end of July 2012, the serial numbers had totalled 532,728 and al-Khazraji said that he expected applicant numbers to have gone up to 1.5 million by the end of the year.
That would mean that around half the population of Ninawa – estimated to be between 2.5 and 3 million – would have applied for a drivers’ license.
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