Road accidents are considered to be a major reason behind fatalities in the UAE. The year by year statistics show that the road safety situation in the UAE has continued to fluctuate from good to bad and vice-versa. While 2016 was an extremely bad year for road safety situation in the UAE, 2017 proved to be slightly better. Road fatalities decreased in 2017, however, the target of traffic authorities to reduce road deaths to 3 deaths per 100,000 people by 2021 still looks far away.
A Brief Review of 2017’s Traffic Problems
After observing a bad year for road safety in 2016, traffic authorities adopted a tougher stance and as a result, the federal traffic law was amended. In fact, the highlight of major developments in the transport sector was the implementation of the amended federal traffic law on July 1, 2017. Apart from the introduction of some new traffic policies, the penalties for dangerous traffic violations were increased significantly in the new traffic law.
The road safety situation has slightly improved since the implementation of the new traffic law, which attributes to a change in mindset that motorists had to make in order to avoid hefty traffic penalties. As compared to the 706 road deaths recorded in 2016, the number of road deaths decreased to 525 in 2017, which is encouraging.
The amended traffic law introduced new traffic rules to discourage motorists from committing dangerous traffic violations such as over-speeding, lane swerving and tailgating amongst others. A new policy for seatbelts was also implemented in the UAE that aimed at imposing harsher fines on motorists over seatbelt violations.
While the implementation of the new traffic law helped in improving the road safety situation in the UAE to some extent, a number of dangerous traffic violations were still recorded that caused road fatalities in 2017.
Also read: Understanding the Speeding Violations According to the New Traffic Law in the UAE
Deadliest Traffic Violations of 2017
Over-speeding and seatbelt violations proved to be the deadliest traffic violations during 2017. Over-speeding caused 230 road deaths in the UAE, which is almost half of the total road deaths recorded in 2017. A staggering number of 7.727 million speeding violations were recorded in 2017, which clearly made it the number one reason behind road fatalities in the UAE.
On the other hand, 60% of the road fatalities recorded in 2017 were because of not wearing seatbelts. Despite stricter penalties for these two violations and awareness campaigns launched by traffic authorities, motorists have continued to commit over-speeding and seatbelt violations. This is a worrying sign for authorities in the broader perspective of traffic safety situation in the UAE. Other traffic violations that continued to escalate traffic problems during 2017 included lane swerving, tailgating, driving on the hard shoulder and general disrespect towards traffic rules.
Also read: The UAE Cabinet Approves Policy on Car Safety Seats for Children
Understanding the Core Traffic Problems in the UAE
The traffic culture of the UAE is extremely diverse mainly because of a high expatriate population in the country. The relatively higher per capita income, presence of many well-acclaimed global companies and growing reputation of the UAE as an industrial hub are the factors that attract the attention of expats to pursue their careers or achieve business excellence in the UAE.
While the per capita income is quite high in the UAE as compared to other countries, the road safety situation doesn’t coincide with the progressive reputation of the country. The government of the UAE has set long-term goals, which include reducing road deaths to 3 deaths per 100,000 people by 2021 and zero deaths per 100,000 people by 2030. Authorities are working tirelessly to improve the road safety situation, but until motorists improve their civic sense and avoid reckless driving habits, maintaining road safety will remain a challenge for authorities in the UAE.
Other than the high expatriate ratio in the country, two other critical traffic problems of the UAE are explained below.
A High Resident to Car Ratio
A major problem that is fundamentally the root-cause behind many traffic problems in the UAE is the high resident to car ratio that can be observed in major emirates of the country. Dubai holds the highest resident to car ratio (2:1) in the world, which adds to the probability of observing long traffic delays and other traffic problems in the emirate. The frustration caused by traffic jams is one of the primary reasons behind dangerous driving mistakes committed by motorists across the country.
Reckless Driving Behavior of Motorists
Reckless driving behavior of motorists is one of the major reasons behind major traffic problems in the UAE. Reckless drivers are the ones that not only ignore the road safety protocols but also violate traffic rules, which causes dangerous road situations on the UAE roads.
Also read: Reckless Driving Violations: Risks, Fines and Penalties in the UAE
Final Words!
Road deaths decreased during 2017, but dangerous traffic violations committed by motorists continued to escalate traffic problems in the UAE. The reckless driving behavior of motorists remained a major reason behind road deaths recorded in 2017 and it is something that the authorities will try to control more effectively in 2018 to inch closer to achieving their goal of reducing road deaths to 3 deaths per 100,000 people by 2021.
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