- RIYADH: Prince Sattam, chairman of the Higher Committee for Traffic Safety, presided over a meeting that discussed a project intending to further ensure road safety among drivers, according to Abdullatif bin Abdulmalik Al-Sheikh, an engineer and president of the Project Center of the Arriyadh Development Authority.
“The meeting, which was the 13th for the committee, discussed the project, which indicates the locations of traffic accidents along highways in Riyadh province with the use of a geographic location tracking system,” Al-Sheikh told Arab News on Tuesday.
He added that according to surveys, the rate of road accidents has gone down. He did not provide statistics in this regard.
According to a paper presented at a forum on a national road traffic safety in 2009, there were 4.3 million road accidents from 1989 to 2008 in the Kingdom, resulting in over 86,000 deaths and more than 610,000 injuries. Seven percent of the survivors became permanently disabled.
More than 60 percent of road accidents were caused by reckless driving, while speeding through red lights caused 34 percent of accidents.
Al-Sheikh said that during the meeting, which was attended by officials responsible for the implementation of orderly traffic and road safety, there was also an exchange of information among the concerned authorities.
He added that the committee also reviewed the measures undertaken by the Ministry of Health to establish an operation room in Riyadh in coordination with the Red Crescent and hospitals that would accept emergency cases.
Moreover, the committee reviewed the efforts of the Ministry of Interior regarding the implementation of Saher, a new traffic management system launched in Riyadh on April 19.
Saher monitors vehicles and tracks them using license plate recognition technology. It also monitors traffic violations as they happen.
Explaining further about Saher, Al-Sheikh said that it works by requesting information from a database at the Riyadh Traffic Center, then issues an automatic ticket whenever a traffic violation is committed.
Al-Sheikh said the committee was briefed on the course of work during the second phase of Saher, which indicated a positive change in the drivers’ conduct on the road.
One week before Saher was launched, the Riyadh Traffic Department launched a road safety forum in coordination with other cities of the Kingdom.
