JEDDAH: The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) will hold a workshop, entitled “Car accidents are a violation of people’s right to life,” which will be presented by Talal Qusti, a member of the NSHR’s Jeddah branch.
Officials from the local Traffic Department and Saudi Red Crescent Society are expected to attend the event, which will be held at 8 p.m. tomorrow in Jeddah.
Safaa Al-Howasi, a NSHR spokesperson, said the event would comprise three sessions. “The first session will discuss how citizens should be aware of the problem of car accidents and how they are drastically affecting society,” she said.
“The second session will deal with why the Kingdom has such a high rate of accidents and their causes. The third session will be an open discussion on the new traffic system and ways to improve it,” she said, adding that the recommendations would be presented to the local authorities for review.
Car accidents in the Kingdom cost the country SR13 billion each year, according to a report published by the Traffic Department recently.
Gen. Fahd Al-Bishr, head of the Traffic Department, said that SR 3.4 billion is spent annually on repairing vehicles, SR734 million on providing medical care to those injured in car accidents and SR326 million in administrative costs to deal with car crashes.
The report also said that around 81 percent of deaths in hospitals concern people involved in car accidents, that the median age of people who die in car crashes is 34, and that 65 percent of injured people need hospital treatment for at least 20 days and rehabilitation therapy for 70 days.
