According to the director general of traffic, 50,000 people have died in the past 10 years and a further 300,000 injured in traffic accidents in the Kingdom. Compare this to the number of lives lost in terror attacks in the same period — about 200. As to the cost to the country as a result of the accidents, it is put at a staggering SR100 billion. If the picture looks grim, in reality it is even worse.
Director General Maj. Gen. Fahd Al-Bishr puts current traffic mortality deaths at 6,400 a year. That works out at 23.7 deaths per hundred thousand of the population. The situation may not be as bad as in Iran where, according to UN figures, there are 43 deaths per 100,000, or Oman (30 per 100,000) but that is small comfort. Traffic accidents are one of the main causes of death in the country.
Compare the present Saudi figures to 10 years ago. Then it was 18 deaths per 100,000. Things are getting worse. Compare, too, the Saudi figures to those in industrialized countries. In the UK, which has more than three times the population of Saudi Arabia, traffic fatalities are way below what they are here — and declining, despite more cars on the road than ever.
In 2007, under 3,000 people died on Britain’s roads, the lowest figure in decades; it works out at 4.9 deaths per 100,000. In France, Spain, Germany, Australia, Canada and most other industrialized nations, the picture is similar — rates not even half the Kingdom’s, and falling. In the US, with 12.1 people killed per 100,000, traffic fatalities last year were the lowest since 1961.
The situation here is all the worse because in industrialized countries one of the prime causes for road accidents is alcohol. That is not a factor here. Yet still there are far more accidents.
It is not road conditions that kill, it is the drivers. The overwhelming majority of accidents are the result of excessive speed, machismo, poor driving skills and lack of attention. There are too many men who, behind the wheel, turn into selfish macho maniacs, viewing the road as theirs and other users as pests in their way. They ignore speed limits, weave in and out of traffic, jump lights, rarely bother to use signals, and sometimes do not even bother to switch on lights at night. They are on the phone. They are even texting while driving. Nationality has nothing to do with it. It is not all the fault of young Saudis. Indians, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Filipinos are just as bad. That is because there is a culture of bad driving in the Kingdom.
The police are going to have to get a lot tougher if accidents are to be reduced. It can be done. The UAE, which used to have the highest traffic fatality rate in the GCC, introduced harsh new measures, including stiffer fines and a penalty points system, last year. The result has been a major drop in accidents. It now has a lower fatality rate than Saudi Arabia.
If the UAE can do it, so can we. There is no reason whatsoever why fatalities cannot be slashed to western European levels. If the Kingdom had the same rate as the UK, 5,000 lives would be saved a year. But there is no point leaving it to drivers to act sensibly. It is the authorities who have to act.
The world needs to act together
The Independent in its editorial yesterday called for more international efforts to fight piracy. Excerpts:
In some respects, the pirates of Somalia are like the Taleban of the seas. They have a base in a state with no effective central government. They mount operations with small arms and relatively cheap equipment. And, as with the Taleban, the world has only woken up to the true scale of the problem late in the day.
The explosion of piracy off the Somali coast is a consequence of malign neglect from the international community. No real attempt was made to prevent the total breakdown of the Somali state in the 1990s. The pirate trade has flourished in the ensuring lawlessness.
Governments also turned a blind eye to the payment of vast ransoms (some $80m in 2008) by private shipping contractors to release captured ships and their crew. This booty has swelled the pirates’ ranks and encouraged ever more raids in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
One consolation, until this week, was that hostages were worth more to pirates alive than dead. But the forcible rescue of an American naval captain by the US Navy, in which three pirates were killed, has altered that calculation. Now we are faced with the worst of all worlds. The pirates are not deterred — as Tuesday’s attempted capture of another American vessel shows — but they are likely to be less scrupulous about the safety of hostages.
Indeed, the action this week by US Navy has provoked threats of revenge. There is a danger that this outrage will lead pirate groups to join forces with the militants operating in Somalia. How long before these commercial raids on shipping transform into terror attacks?
It is clear that the ad hoc approach of the international community to the Somali pirate menace adopted of late is not good enough. A properly international and co-ordinated approach to the problem is needed.
