Dubai to reset driving speed limits

Dubai is in the process of resetting speed limits at its roads as part of a two-year project intended to re-evaluate vehicle speed on the emirate’s streets to improve safety, its roads authority has revealed.

The project will be carried out in three phases involving resetting maximum speed on internal and external roads and planting more signboards showing speed limits on each road, the Roads and Communications Authority (TRA) said.

“The speed management project is being implemented in three stages and we have already started feeding the computer to evaluate each road separately,” said Maitha bin Oday, executive manager of the roads and communications corporation at RTA./ Quoted by the Arabic language daily Emirat Alyoum, she said maximum speed limit could be either reduced, increased or maintained, depending on the road and traffic activity, adding that some roads could see more traffic police patrols and speed cameras.

The project also involves installation of sign boards within a distance of 500 metres on roads with 60-km speed limits and within 5,000 metres on roads with 120-km maximum limit.

She said Dubai, the region’s trade and business hub, is pushing ahead with an ambitious traffic strategy aimed at improving road safety and cutting road accident deaths to levels in advanced countries by 2015. She said the strategy had already paid off, with the death rate dipping from 21.7 deaths per every 100,000 people in 2007 to 6.7 deaths per every 100,000.

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