Editorial: How to make our roads safer

Saudi Arabia’s roads are the most dangerous and deadly in the world. According to the World Health Organization, 17 people die on the Kingdom’s roads every day. Indeed road wrecks are the principal cause of death for adult males between the ages of 16 and 35.
With 300,000 wrecks annually, roughly a third of hospital beds is taken up by those injured on the roads. Abdullah M. Rubaish, rector of the University of Dammam and chairman of the Supreme Committee of the second Traffic Safety Forum, has said that the total bill for the carnage on our roads is now running at around SR13 billion … a truly staggering figure.
There is to be a forum in Dammam next week to look at what can be done to bring about radical change. As reported in this newspaper on Thursday, one proposal is for a scientific organization to focus on traffic safety issues.
This may indeed be a sound move. But there is one fundamental change that can be made right now, which ought to have an immediate impact. Everyone should stop calling these wrecks “accidents”.
They are not events that simply cannot be helped — which is the definition of the word accident”. Road smashes happen because somebody behaved with stupidity, or lack of consideration or sheer recklessness. All too often wrecks are caused by excessive speed, frequently coupled with inexperienced, if not totally untrained drivers. A total disregard of speed restrictions, traffic lights or road regulations is not accidental. It is actually willful, selfish and idiotic.
Then there are the tests that vehicles are supposed to undergo to ensure that they are roadworthy. Those who submit to the rigorous inspections are right to wonder how obviously decrepit vehicles, especially trucks of all sizes, can be allowed on the roads when they are belching fumes and showing every evidence of poor maintenance and sometimes, perilous over-loading. It is not an accident if one of these unchecked trucks plows into the back of parked traffic, because its brakes have not worked properly. It is actually sheer contempt for the law and a total lack of concern for other road users.
Drivers of uninspected vehicles have made a calculation. They can save the trouble and expense of the obligatory official checks, in the hope, if not expectation, that they will not be pulled over by the traffic cops and fined. There is nothing accidental about this greed.
The horror on our roads is compounded by another scandal — the prevalence of fake parts, especially in braking units. A judge in Jeddah recently said that in his experience, half of all auto wrecks here are caused by fake and faulty components. It is no accident that these are imported into the Kingdom by unscrupulous middle-men. Anyone buying key auto parts at suspiciously low prices is probably aware that they must be counterfeit, but would rather save money than ensure that their vehicle is safe. That choice is no accident.
There are of course decent people who go out and buy fake parts for their vehicles, assuming they are the real deal. But did they go to a reputable dealer to make their purchase? Or did they risk buying, probably at full price, from an outlet that did not have the clear bonafides of an authorized parts distributor? If they did, then that unwise choice was also no accident.
If the authorities are serious about tackling the monstrous death toll on the Kingdom’s roads, they have to bin, one and for all, the word “accident”. With the mercifully rare exceptions of rock falls and flash floods, there are no genuine accidents on our highways. With every collision, someone is always to blame. All of the 17 people who, the statistics show us, will die on our roads today, will lose their lives through an error, either on their own part or on the part of someone else.
A major reason for this slaughter is that hardly anyone is ever held accountable. Sure the Saher system of speed cameras has cut down on lunatic driving, but only where the cameras are in operation. What is needed is a far wider CCTV system that will automatically log, not just speedsters but those who drive murderously badly. And we need prosecutions. We need big fines and we probably need jail sentences too. It is time the price for crazy driving was paid by the perpetrators and not other motorists. It should be no accident that lunatic motorists are punished severely. Only this will make our roads safer.