63 percent feel drivers don’t respect laws

Sixty-three percent of respondents in a survey conducted recently by the Riyadh Traffic Department believe that the Kingdom’s drivers have no respect for the country's traffic laws.
The survey comes in the wake of statistics showing that traffic accidents are killing the world’s youth, particularly young people in the Arab world. The Kingdom has one of the worst traffic accident rates globally.
The Riyadh Traffic Department found that 21 percent of respondents believe that drivers abide by the rules to some extent and 15 percent thought drivers in the Kingdom “have a good level of respect for traffic laws.”
About 3,000 people reportedly participated in the survey to find out why some drivers abide by the rules in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and not in the Kingdom. Some respondents thought that reckless driving in the Kingdom could be attributed to several factors including starting to drive too young and the traffic congestion in major cities that obstruct people from attending to their daily affairs.
Ihab Samannoudi, a member of the Arab Road Safety Organization, said 1.3 million people die and 50 million are injured every year worldwide because of traffic accidents, causing losses estimated at $ 500 billion.
Accidents have become one of the main causes of death for people between 14 and 28 years of age. A large proportion of the populations in Arab countries fall in this category, with 60 percent under 45 years of age. “The youth are the energy for nations’ productivity. When a young person is badly injured because of an accident, then part of this energy becomes disabled,” he said.
Samannoudi said that Jeddah’s traffic congestion could be a reason for some drivers losing their tempers and driving recklessly. However, he pointed out that other factors could be causing accidents, such as road design and conditions, road management and road users — which includes the procedures and training before obtaining driving licenses.
He said the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims estimated that 450,000 accidents took place in the Kingdom in 2011, causing 7,000 deaths and 39,000 injuries.
Samannoudi praised the UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 that aims to reduce accidents worldwide.
He commended awareness efforts by the Traffic Police, Road Security Department, Saudi Aramco and some nonprofit organizations.
Saeed Al-Bassami, chairman of the transport committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said roads in the country were being constructed to the highest standards “but infrastructure works are still continuing.”
The main reason for accidents is reckless driving, he said, adding that the Saher traffic monitoring system has helped reduce accidents by 27 percent.