Saudi Arabia: Child seen driving at 111mph on highway

A video of a child seen driving at 111mph (180km/h) on a Saudi highway has gone viral, attracting over 47,000 views on YouTube. The video was published on 29 March 2016 and has come under strong criticism from social media users who called on the child's father to face legal action and possibly even jail time.

In the video, the child can be seen clenching onto the steering wheel as the camera zooms into the speedometer, revealing the shocking speed at which the car is travelling across the highway. It remains unclear how many passengers were in the car and if the child was even accompanied by an adult.

"We have had many incidents with countless deaths because of this...[we need] awareness of children's likelihood of causing death in a fatal accident," one user commented under the video.

It is not the first instance of a child seen driving in the Kingdom, where women are still fighting for the right to drive. In September 2015, another video emerged of a young boy driving on a Riyadh highway with an older man accompanying him in the passenger seat.

In December 2015, footage emerged yet again of a child driving at a dangerously high speed through the streets of Saudi Arabia while grinning. He allegedly filming the video himself.

Underage driving is not unique to Saudi Arabia. In February 2015, a Taiwanese father was heavily criticised after a video surfaced of his one-month-old son strapped to the steering wheel. The video – believed to have been uploaded by the baby's parents, Yong Liao and Xia Lung – sparked a major outcry across Taiwan and China.