More roads across Qatar need median barriers to enhance road traffic and pedestrian safety, a senior Ashghal official suggested on Tuesday at Qatar Transport Safety Forum.

Ashghal's road safety engineer advisor Fabian Marsh said 48% of the roads across country, including Doha and its neighbourhoods have no median barriers.
Along with head on crashes, roll overs, crashes at intersections and pedestrian fatalities contributed to a major percentage of deaths on the country's roads.
The reports were based on studies the teams from Ashghal carried out on Expressways, and other major roads, including three-lane/per side roads and even two-lane per side roads.
Similarly 44% of the intersections where traffic flows at 60 km/hour or more have no roundabouts and 48% of the roads with considerable pedestrian movement and traffic flows at the rate of 40 km/hour have neither medians or roundabouts. The speaker also said his studies have found 55% of the roads have unprotected road side hazards on the passenger side.
Only 24% of the locations where head-on collisions were reported, had any kinds of safety barriers on the middle. Of which 10% places have metal safety barriers, only 8% concrete safety barriers and 6% wire rope barriers.
While in the remaining 76% locations, only 30% places have a centre line, 26% have physical medians of 1 to 5m width, 15% have physical medians of 5 to 10m and 3% have physical medians of less than one metre width.
Of the places having passenger side hazard risks, 29% have no protection at all. While 6% have safety barriers made from concrete, 4% locations have metal safety barriers.
Speaking later on Pedestrian Evaluation Review System, an official from the Ministry of Transport and Communication said the ministry recently carried out a survey of 650 residents at such locations as Safari Mall, Museum of Islamic Art grounds and Souq Waqif and surroundings. Only 25% said there is adequate protection for pedestrians on the road while the rest were united in their demand for better safety and protection for pedestrians across Doha and outskirts.
She said there is greater demand for pedestrian facilities such as zebra crossings and signals near Souq Waqif as there is a considerably large pedestrian movement in its surroundings owing to increasing tourist arrival there.
The speaker added there is greater need for traffic education and awareness among a significantly large population of pedestrians.