Blood money

In Islamic Law, if you kill someone then their family is entitled to blood money, or diya. The most likely way here is to knock down a pedestrian - 23 already this year on the road outside my office and 23 last year. The payment is 200,000 Dirhams, around £30,000. This is normally covered by insurance unless you have been drinking, and there is zero tolerance. There are Europeans still in jail here because they can't raise the money.

Disconcertingly, there are reports that desperate people here are committing suicide on the roads simply to send the money back to their family. I wince ever ytime I see someone about to run across the motorway in front of me (an extremely common occurrence).

Anyway, a new law is to be introduced in an attempt to stop this. I just hope they manage to tell the people who might be affected. It's unlikely that they read the local papers.