JEDDAH, 18 August 2003 — Even with the increased vigilance of the traffic police, drivers on the Makkah Expressway and other major roads around Jeddah are still taking chances with their lives and those of other road users.
At peak periods, vehicles overtaking on the hard shoulder and cutting across three or four lanes to a right-hand exit threaten dense streams of traffic moving at the legal limit of 100kph on the Makkah Expressway.
One incident, observed by an Arab News reporter, ended with an automobile on its roof, dripping fuel on the sandy right-hand shoulder of the northbound carriageway, having swerved while traveling at speed on the left-hand shoulder and swerving across four lanes of traffic out of control.
A recent trip along the Makkah Expressway during the afternoon rush hour saw fifteen cases of “yellow-lining” in as many of minutes. Parked under several of the bridges were police patrol cars, usually with one occupant, acting as a high-profile deterrent. Their positions are well known — they did not seem to deter anyone.
One driver, clearly upset while relating the story, spoke of his cousin who five years ago was much given to “yellow-lining.”
“He hit a small pot-hole in the outside lane, lost control, and the car rolled across the central reservation into an oncoming truck,” he said. “Both my cousin and the truck driver died.” He was just 18 years old.
Ben Hardy, who hired a car on a short visit to the Kingdom recently, was nonplussed. “I just cannot understand how these guys don’t see the dangers. Surely they must know. Perhaps they just don’t care.”
Hardy holds a UK Heavy Goods license, allowing him to drive articulated vehicles up to 50 tons. “Training for that can be summed up in a word,” he said. “Anticipation. Thirty or so tons of reinforcing bars behind your head concentrate the mind wonderfully. One false maneuver and you’re a hamburger. These people don’t think or anticipate beyond the bonnet of the car, let alone about any consequences of an accident.”
Single vehicle crashes account for a surprisingly large percentage of deaths. Studies in the USA have determined that crashes in which a vehicle rolled over accounted for 32 percent of all passenger vehicle occupant deaths in 2001, 55 percent of single-vehicle occupant crash deaths.
The UK Commission for Integrated Transport reported recently that the UK has “the best roads fatality record in Europe with 6 deaths per 100,000.”
In Saudi Arabia the death rate tops 21 per 100,000 people. Local law excludes half the population from driving — unlike in all the other countries from which statistics are available. Even so, in 2001, the number of accidents in the Kingdom reached 280,400 (768 accidents a day.) 10 percent of these accidents resulted in serous injuries, and yielded an averaged of 12 deaths per day.
In 2002, the number of accidents increased by 15 percent to reach 320,000 accidents (876 accidents per day), which resulted in 13 deaths per day.
