A Saudi man was killed and his wife and two children were injured when their car crashed off a bridge while being pursued by religious police in Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

According to newspaper reports, the chase began when one of the four members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice confronted the 35-year-old father and his family on their way home from an amusement park.

The four religious police, who were arrested and are to be charged with "abusing power", had said the loud volume of the car radio prompted the confrontation.

The car sped off, police in pursuit, and crashed over a bridge - killing the father, putting his nine-year-old son in a coma, leaving his pregnant wife with an amputated arm and young daughter, aged four, in hospital.

The religious police in general arrest those who do not comply with their rules. They patrol the streets to enforce gender segregation and ensure the public behave in accordance with strict Islamic teachings.

In March , however, the commission's head banned car pursuits that had led to several fatal accidents.

Believed to be relatively moderate, Shaikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh was appointed in January as the new chief of the religious police, raising hopes that a more lenient force would ease draconian social constraints.

Two weeks into his post, he banned volunteers from serving in the commission that enforces the kingdom's strict Islamic rules.

And in April he went further, prohibiting the religious police from "harassing people" and threatening "decisive measures against violators".

It is understandable that in a strict religious country certain behaviour needs to be followed, but chasing a car because the music is loud?

What is upsetting is that four adults decided to go overboard with their so-called duty and took things too far, turning what should have been only a friendly caution into tragedy.

Yes, a society needs to follow certain moral values in order for its individuals to live in harmony with one another and each society will define what is right or wrong according to its religious or social beliefs.

More often than not religious leaders are excellent role models who promote values such as forgiveness, love, compassion, kindness and understanding. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr are two examples of role models that demonstrated inspiring behaviour.

Maybe if we provide our youngsters with more opportunities to meet important people who have exemplified themselves as ones who uphold moral values then they will appreciate and understand their society's values more.

Schools, religious groups and families must also provide more circumstances for social action, introducing children to moral issues and teaching them that moral behaviour and social action are humanistic.

The adults in the car may not have thought that what they were doing was wrong or harmful to anyone. They were enjoying an afternoon together as any family would.

However, by the same token the religious police believed otherwise.

Here lies the dilemma. Moral, social and religious values can at times go head to head, but does it warrant such a tragic ending?

In any society or religion, the most important freedom you can give to an individual is the freedom to think and determine for themselves what is good and what is bad. Only then can we call ourselves humane.