Traffic accidents in the Eastern Province have come down even as the numbers increased in other parts of the Kingdom, thanks mainly to the joint initiative undertaken by the Saudi Aramco, the Ministry of Education and Traffic Department to create traffic safety awareness among schoolchildren in the region.

Sultan Al-Zahrani, secretary-general of the Traffic Safety Committee in the Eastern Province and chairman of traffic safety at Saudi Aramco, said an agreement had been signed with the minister of education requiring seven awareness courses to be taught during the three academic stages on the importance of traffic safety.

Al-Zahrani said that nearly 85,000 students receive training on safe driving annually with a total of over 850,000 students in the Eastern Province standing to benefit from this venture in the coming years. “This initiative has been going on for the past three years,” he said.

Nearly 700 teachers have been trained in person so far to provide safety education, while another 1,100 teachers have received training electronically via the committee’s website “Safety is Better.”

The teachers receive a five-year incentive of SR120 per course offered by Saudi Aramco.

The project to introduce traffic safety courses in schools will cost about SR35 million, of which SR20 million will be borne by Saudi Aramco.

The announcement came during the inauguration of the first traffic safety park “Beep Beep” launched by the Traffic Safety Committee in the Al-Rashid Mall in Alkhobar in the presence of a number of key officials and dignitaries, including Saudi Aramco Senior Vice President Abdulaziz F. Al-Khayyal and Ministry of Education chief in the Eastern Region Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Mudairis.