More than 6,600 traffic offences daily in Dubai

Drivers in Dubai maintained their position as having one of the world’s worst traffic records as they committed an average of more than 6,600 offences on the roads in the first nine months of 2011, police statistics show.

The nearly 1.875 million road offences recorded by the emirate’s traffic police mean that there was an offence for almost every person and that motorists are not much deterred by the intensifying police campaigns against reckless driving in the Middle East’s main transshipment centre.

The offences resulted in 96 deaths compared with 122 deaths in the first nine months of 2010, when nearly 1.788 million violations were recorded.Speed remained the dominant traffic problem in the emirate as they stood at 128,610 offences, accounting for around 85 per cent of the total offences.

The report, published in Emarat Alyoum Arabic language daily, showed there were 78,931 offences involving blocking traffic, 63,587 seat belt violations and 60,250 offences for wrong parking.

“The increase in speed offences despite intensifying police campaign show that some drivers are determined to violate the speed limit and traffic rules…these offences are the main cause of accidents,” said Major General Mohammed Saif al Zafeen, director of Dubai’s traffic police department.

But he noted that offences involving jumping the red lights declined to 12,888 in the first nine months of this year from 13,604 in the first nine months of 2010.

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