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19 March 2024

UAE poised for major traffic law changes

Published
By Nadim Kawach

Nearly six years after it introduced its latest traffic law, the UAE is planning major amendments in driving penalties to match technological and social developments and to curb accidents that kill hundreds of people every year.

New penalties to be introduced through the country include eating or drinking while driving, adding make up by women driving their cars, men getting dressed inside their vehicles, texting by mobile phones and wearing sunglasses at night.

The new law also modifies speed ranges by toughening fines against higher speed and prevents law enforcers from issuing seat belt fines in the absence of drivers.

The new set of penalties was debated last week by the UAE’s Federal Traffic Council, which will present more detailed fines proposals to the ministry of interior shortly before it is sent to the federal cabinet for approval.

“The traffic law already includes penalties against negligence in driving but it does not specify certain offences and wrong behavior,” said Major General Mohammed Saif Al Zafeen, Dubai’s Assistant Police Commander for Operations.

“These include women adding make-up while driving their cars, men getting dressed or putting on their gutra (head gear) while driving, eating or drinking or reading newspapers and other items, and speaking or texting by mobile phones while driving on the country’s roads,” he told Emarat Al Youm daily.

Zafeen said the council, the highest federal traffic authority in the second largest Arab economy, decided that it was time to introduce “extensive” amendments to the federal traffic law nearly six years after it was introduced.

“We found that it is logical to revise the law six years after it was issued taking into consideration new social, technical and technological developments.

“The law includes certain articles which seem to be controversial like the seat belt fine, which the law stipulates that it is issued in the presence of the drivers, but we find that many seat belt penalties are issued in the drivers’ absence.”

Speeding

Zafeen said another controversial article is the penalty for speeding, which will be amended in the new law.

He said the new penalty for exceeding the speed limit by 60km would be Dh2,000 and confiscation of the vehicle for two months.

“The present law does not clearly specify this penalty. This does not make sense that a driver who is caught making 200kmph gets the same fine as the one  who drives at 160kmph.”

The planned changes come as the UAE maintained is position as having one of the world’s highest road accident rates relative to its population and number of vehicles.

Police attribute this to persistent violations of traffic rules despite the introduction of more stringent penalties over the years.

The numbers

Interior ministry data showed UAE drivers committed 8.6 million traffic offences in 2013, a whopping daily average of nearly 23,560 violations.

Speeding accounted for nearly half the offences and Abu Dhabi motorists were the largest offenders, followed by those in Dubai.

Speed offences totaled 4.3 million while there were 338,000 violations involving failure by drivers to stick to lane and 85,000 offences for using the mobile phone  while driving.

The report showed violations caused over 5,000 accidents which killed 651 people , an average 6.5 per 100,000, one of the world’s highest traffic related death rates.

The casualties last year were above the 628 deaths recorded in 2012 but remained below the record high deaths of 720 in 2011.

The deaths in 2013 were a result of 5,124 major accidents that also resulted in the injury of 7,743 people, according to the interior ministry.

Last year’s deaths included138 Emiratis while the rest were Asians, Arabs, Africans and other nationalities living in the second largest Arab economy.

Interior ministry’s traffic coordination director Brigadier Gaith Al Zaabi cited eight main causes for the road mishaps in the UAE, including speeding, failure to stick to the lane, reckless driving, negligence, jumping the red signal and other reasons.

He said speeding caused 368 serious accidents while 365 mishaps were a result of jumping the red lights and 1,048 accidents were caused by failure to stay in line.