RIYADH, 26 August — More than 4,800 people were killed and over 32,000 injured in traffic accidents in the Kingdom last year, according to a report compiled by the national panel for traffic safety here.
Saudi Arabia’s financial loss is over SR21billion annually on account of the sharp increase in the number of traffic accidents.
The holy city of Makkah tops in terms of the number of traffic accidents followed by Riyadh, the Eastern Province and Asir, said the report released yesterday. It said most of the accidents were caused by overspeeding and reckless driving.
Referring to Makkah and Riyadh as the most accident-prone cities, the report said that more than 94,000 traffic accidents were reported from Makkah alone last year. Makkah was followed by the capital city where a total of 80,067 accidents were reported during the same period.
A large number of road accidents are reported during Haj every year especially on the roads leading to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
The report has prompted the traffic department to take immediate measures to check the growing rate of accidents. The department has imposed tighter restrictions on motorists including withdrawal of driving licenses of traffic offenders.
The Kingdom is in the process of implementing a new system of punishment for traffic violators under which the traffic officials will cancel the driving license of any person holding a Saudi license, if he accumulates 18 traffic violation points in a whole year. This proposal is awaiting final approval.
Under the proposed system motorists driving recklessly or at high speed will be punished by six violation points, whereas drunken driving will invite 18 violation points.
Punishment will be based on the points accumulated by motorists during a year.
A non-Saudi driver with 54 violation points will face tough punitive action including deportation, said Brig. Fahd Al-Bishr, director-general of Traffic Administration, in another report published recently. The new system of punishment also stipulates that running the red light or ignoring stop-sign will be punished by six points, whereas driving during night or in fog without lights will acquire four violation points. The officials will award penalty points to those who skid up on pedestrian passages, those with no brakes, for failure to stop or slow vehicles for the handicapped and also for failure to present cars for periodic inspections.
This new system will be shortly in place besides many other traffic awareness programs launched on the national level to check the growing rate of traffic accidents.
The report, however, said that Saudi Arabia has introduced several measures to reduce the number of accidents. The Kingdom has undertaken a massive project to install surveillance cameras on major intersections and roads to monitor traffic violations. This is in addition to the mandatory use of seat belt.
The rate of accidents in Saudi Arabia is highest in the world with an average of 12 people killed daily on its roads. Four injuries are reported every hour because of accidents. The ratio of death cases stood at 32 per 100,000 of the population, while that for injuries to the number of accident was 71 percent.
Of those involved in accidents, 16 percent do not possess driving licenses. And only 21 percent of motorists are insured in the country.
The growing number of vehicles, ignorance of safety norms and reckless driving, mainly by youngsters, are attributed to to the huge number of accidents. On average, each family in Saudi Arabia has 1.7 cars.
