A study conducted by the Higher Commission for Development of Riyadh (HCDR) has recommended allocation of SR1.3 billion per year on traffic safety projects aimed to minimize casualties and damages resulting from traffic accidents.

The HCDR study said the minimal cost of traffic accidents Kingdom-wide stood at SR13.2 billion, local media said.

The study, jointly conducted with Riyadh Traffic, stressed that 10 percent of costs sustained by the government and community should be spent on implementation of traffic safety projects.

The administrative cost of traffic accidents in Riyadh alone had touched SR62 million per year. In terms of time, a single case of damage in an accident consumes one hour’s effort while an injury case normally takes an average of three hours. A fatal case takes an average of 20 hours, the study said. Based on the latest data, there are approximately 7,100 road fatalities every year and 38,000 seriously injured individuals, of whom 7 percent are permanently disabled. Losses resulting from road accidents stand at SR 21bn annually, the report indicated.

In Riyadh, nearly 2.5 million traffic offenses were recorded in 2013, witnessing an increase of 13.6 percent over the previous year, when the number of traffic offenses was 2.2 million.

Col, Ali Al-Dibaikhi of the Riyadh Traffic Directorate said a total of 87,682 cars were also seized for various irregularities. The traffic offenses were reported by field traffic teams and the figure does not include those covered under the Saher traffic system.

Statistics from the General Directorate of Traffic have shown that the Kingdom records 23 deaths per 100,000 people, with an average 19.1 road fatalities occurring daily. However, Saher system (the newly-introduced electronic traffic violation detector) has considerably curbed the occurrence of accidents in major cities of the Kingdom, the experts said.