JEDDAH, 20 February 2004 — Four expatriate workers died instantly and two were critically injured when a car plowed into them on Abdullah Sulaiman Street here on Monday.
The workers, who were employed by a gardening contractor, were eating breakfast by the roadside around 9 a.m. when a Jaguar drove into them at high speed, apparently to avoid a collision with an oncoming Toyota car, Okaz Arabic daily reported.
Three of the workers were killed instantly. One of them was decapitated by the impact, the paper said. A fourth victim was killed by the Toyota as the driver tried to avoid the Jaguar.
Three ambulance teams arrived at the scene within minutes.
A doctor from Al-Mustaqbal Hospital said the hospital admitted two workers. One suffered severe head injuries and massive internal bleeding and is in critical condition. The other patient suffers from fractures to his legs and hands.
“We were eating and laughing,” a survivor told the paper. “But suddenly the laughter turned to screams. I’ll never forget what happened as long as I live,” he added.
In a similar accident last December, a speeding truck plowed into a group of expatriate jobseekers on Sitteen Street killing six and injuring six others.
The accident took place while a group of expatriates were sitting on the sidewalk at a location where day laborers gather to look for work. Five of them were killed instantly while the sixth died in hospital.
The Kingdom has one of the highest rates of fatal car accidents in the world. Driving instruction is rudimentary, traffic laws are routinely ignored, and there exists no culture of cooperation among drivers, let alone respect for pedestrians.
