GCC roads becoming safer to drive on: Expert

Dubai, Nov 20 (IANS/WAM) Roads in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are becoming safer to drive on but improving road user behaviour standards and introducing a graduated driver licensing scheme will help in a sustained reduction of road fatalities on the region's highways, a road safety expert has said.

Simon Labbett, Director of the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said that while much of the Gulf region is developing strategies to improve road safety, a sustained improvement is still a long way off.

According to the Pulitzer Centre's "Roads Kill Map", published with World Health Organisation statistics, Bahrain is the safest of all Gulf nations for road users with 10.5 road deaths per 100,000 population, compared with 12.7 in the UAE, 13.2 in Qatar, 16.5 in Kuwait, 24.8 in Saudi Arabia and 30.4 in Oman.

In context, the U.S.A. has 11.4 road deaths per 100,000 population, Britain has 3.7 and Sweden has the world's safest roads at just 3 deaths per 100,000.

"Our roads are becoming safer but this is not yet sustainable," said Labbett, who will be speaking about current regional road safety trends and mechanisms for enabling change at the Gulf Traffic Conference to be held Dec 9-10 in Dubai.

"Quick gains are the easy part, sustaining the change is harder and we should not become complacent," he said.

--IANS/WAM

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