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28 March 2024

Over 8m traffic offences in UAE

Published
By Staff

The UAE appears to be maintaining its position as having one of the worst traffic records in the world, with more than eight million offences committed by motorists in just one year, official data showed on Monday.

The figure means that there was an average one offence for every resident and over 11 offences for every driver in the second largest Arab economy.

The figures by the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (DED) showed there were nearly 1.3 million simple traffic mishaps which inflicted around Dh2.1 billion in road and economic losses.

Last year’s traffic offences of 8.04 million were nearly 17 per cent above those recorded in 2010 despite a series of deterrent measures taken by traffic police in all emirates to curb offences and consequently accidents.

Abu Dhabi accounted for nearly half the total traffic offences last year, with around 3.96 million, according to the report, presented by DED expert Ibrahim Al Abed to a recent traffic conference in Abu Dhabi.

The paper showed accidents killed 2,512 people during 2009-2011 and Abu Dhabi again was the main victim, with 1,122 deaths.

It showed there were 6,700 serious accidents in 2011, resulting in the death of 720 people and injury of 78,080. Abu Dhabi alone recorded 2,280 accidents that caused the death of 344 people and injured 3,547.

“There should be more stringent penalties to stop this bloodshed on the roads,” the paper said. “UAE traffic police should adopt an incremental fine system and increase licensing fees and insurance premiums on motorists who cause repeated accidents within one year.”

The UAE and other Gulf states have been locked in a massive drive to reduce accidents following a surge in road deaths. Most of them have introduced stiffer penalties, increased road patrols and installed advanced speed cameras.

According to a Saudi study, Gulf countries are ahead of the United States in deaths caused by road accidents.

An average one person in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is killed in road mishaps every hour and lack of awareness about road discipline is the main reason for these disasters, said the study, authored by Abdul Jalil Al Saif, a member of Saudi Arabia’s Shura council (appointed parliament).

In 2008, car crashes killed 9,049 people in the GCC, nearly 28 per cent of the road deaths of about 32,000 in the Arab world and around 0.7 per cent of the world’s total road casualties of nearly 1.2 million, Al Saif said.

In the GCC, the richest group in the Arab region, an average 25 people were killed in road accidents every day in 2008, or one casualty every one hour.

“If we compare the number of casualties in road accidents in the GCC and the United States, we find that the GCC countries are ahead of the US despite the much higher number of cars operating in the US,” he said.