Driver burns bus rather than let police seize it

AMMAN — A bus driver set his vehicle on fire on Monday morning near the busy Sweileh Circle in west Amman after traffic police tried to impound the bus for several traffic violations, according to the Public Security Department (PSD).

In a routine inspection, traffic police personnel stopped the bus and asked for the driver’s identification card and licences, according to a PSD statement to the press.

“The driver wasn’t licensed; he didn’t hold any licenses,” PSD Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

The bus licence had expired in May 2016, according to the PSD statement, which also indicated that the driver also illegally changed his bus route.

The driver, who is in his thirties, was operating on the Sweileh-Amman-Salt route, Sartawi said, indicating that the bus was only licensed to operate within Balqa Governorate, 35km northwest of Amman.

The PSD said impounding the bus was required by law, given all of the recorded violations.

But the driver, who has 64 previous criminal counts, resisted the impounding of his vehicle, poured fuel, brought to him by his assistant, over the vehicle and set it on fire.

The Civil Defence Department (CDD) said it extinguished the burning bus at 7:43am, indicating that no injuries or fatalities occurred.

“The bus was not carrying any passengers when it was set on fire. By the time firefighters arrived at the scene, the fire had already engulfed the bus,” a CDD source told The Jordan Times.

The source, who preferred to remain unnamed, said an official investigation is now under way.

Meanwhile, the PSD said it escorted the driver and his assistant, who brought the fuel used for burning the bus, to a police station for legal and administrative action.

Social media users on Monday shared photos of the burning bus parked on the side of the road, with some calling for the bus driver’s imprisonment, while others expressing sympathy with him.

Omar Madallah wrote on Facebook: “When people start getting out of control and burning their way of making a living because of a traffic ticket, they must be under pressure… Don’t add to their agonies with traffic tickets. At the same time, it is unjustifiable for the bus driver to burn a JD100,000 bus because of a traffic violation…”.

Ziad Masri also commented on the incident on Facebook, saying that “[the driver] must be put in jail and his licences revoked because his actions put people’s lives at risk.”