The plight of the pedestrians

An expatriate woman remembered something she had seen which brought home to me the horror of the problem I want to discuss. What she saw happened on Tahlia Street in Jeddah; she said, "It was time for Maghreb prayers and my husband was waiting to cross the road to get to the mosque on the other side. A laborer standing near my husband was in a bigger hurry to get to the mosque. He ran into the road and was hit by a car with such force that he was thrown high into the air. He was killed instantly. I watched everything from the car in horror and today, several years later, I get chills just remembering it."

The Kingdom has one of the highest road accident rates in the world. Most result from speeding and violating driving rules. In the statistics, however, there is a small, number of pedestrians who are killed while crossing roads and streets.

A client service manager in the Eastern Province says that when he drives on the Dammam-Khobar highway, he is extra alert and is never at ease. "Many new buildings and offices are along the road and pedestrian traffic has increased accordingly. There are no designated places for people to cross so they stand on the medians and whenever they feel it’s safe, they run across. The fact that these medians have shrubs and small trees makes it difficult for drivers to see pedestrians and vice-versa. Many pedestrians have misjudged the speed of oncoming vehicles and have been killed. This is a serious problem and I think that the government should build pedestrian walkways for crossing the road."

A shop owner on Prince Majed Street in Jeddah has much the same story. "This is a very busy area with the Pakistani school around the corner. There are also many apartments in the area. Over the past few years, I have seen several accidents involving small children. They try to cross the road alone and they are too young and inexperienced to judge the speed of an approaching vehicle. They often panic and what happens is a tragedy."

In Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam and other cities, there are many pedestrians. They rely on their feet to transport them, even if it is to get a bus or taxi. The problem is made worse by housewives who send small children to neighborhood shops and markets. Often the children have to cross busy roads and accidents happen.

Are pedestrian bridges a solution to the problem? A survey on their usefulness was conducted a few years ago by a professor at King Saud University, Riyadh. His findings were shocking. Only 10 percent of pedestrians used the bridges in Riyadh; the other 90 percent simply did not make the effort to walk up the stairs and use the bridges. Perhaps the best solution would be to have proper crosswalks with walk/don’t walk signals. Action needs to be taken — and taken soon and definitively — to avoid the unnecessary and tragic loss of pedestrian lives on our roads.