Qatar is committed to lower the total number of road accidents by the end of this decade (2020) from the prevailing levels, a top official said yesterday.
“The present average of 7.5 deaths per 100,000 people shows a good improvement from the figures of more than 20/100,000 before the start of this decade,” said Brigadier Mohamed Saad al-Kharji, director general, General Directorate of Traffic.
The official, who is also the vice chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) was addressing an event organised by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) to mark World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, observed in the UN member countries on the third Sunday of November.
A number of senior officials, representatives of different communities, companies, universities and schoolchildren and other stakeholders of NTSC, including a number of government and non-government agencies, were present.
“The first phase of the 10-year action plan being implemented in Qatar in accordance with the UN resolutions to provide better and user-friendly transport systems has been a success,” Brigadier al-Kharji recalled.
He said such issues as programmes on community awareness, urban planning and response to accidents have been addressed well in the country and the figures released by the country’s traffic authorities last year years stood testimony to this.
“We, in Qatar are committed to reduce not only the number of road traffic accident casualties but our department is also working round-the-clock to ensure that the number of traffic accidents are also brought down remarkably from the present levels,” he said, adding that the transport department aims to bring down the total number of road traffic casualties to 130/year from the present 227.
A recent UN report said that more than 7% of the global GDP is wasted owing to traffic accidents.
Citing statistics, Brigadier al-Kharji observed that most of the road accident victims across the world were below 45 years and such premature deaths of individuals cost every society heavily.
The director general said the country has implemented 89 programmes as part of its decade-long action plan to reduce traffic accidents and 33 more plans remained to be implemented in the next four years.
The government is also working consistently to bring down the total number of serious traffic injuries to below 300 before the end of 2020.
While inaugurating the meeting earlier, NTSC secretary general Brigadier (retired) Mohamed al-Malki said such issues as pedestrian friendly requirements on roads and improving road engineering infrastructure are regularly dealt with locally.
NTSC manager Jim Jraiw, senior consultant at Hamad Trauma Centre Dr Mohamed Ellabib, MoI official Lt Col Mohamed R al-Hajri, Qatar University’s Transport Safety Studies Centre director and dean Khalifa al-Khalifaa, NTSC expert Ademolia Illori and HMC’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Centre co-ordinator Zvjezdana Zafa also gave presentations.
Zafa said it is a remarkable achievement that the number of road accident victims treated at the Rehabilitation Centre has dropped drastically compared to the figures some 10 years ago. “Also there has been a big fall in the number of Qatari accident victims being treated at the centre,” she added.