​Fewer accidents but more deaths on Oman roads

Muscat: There were fewer accidents, but more deaths in the Sultanate until the end of August 2017, compared with the same period in 2016, according to figures released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
“428 deaths due to traffic accidents until the end of August 2017, reflecting an increase of 8.1 per cent, compared with the same period of 2016. On the other hand, there was a 7.1 per cent decrease in the number of traffic accidents recorded until the end of August 2017, compared with the same period of 2016,” NCSI tweeted.
Daryle Hardie, chief executive officer of Safety First Oman, was unhappy to see this negative trend.
“This, unfortunately, seems to be a negative trend on the roads in Oman,” he said.
“The Royal Oman Police (ROP) are doing a much better job in trying to regulate traffic on the roads, but there still seems to be a lack of awareness among drivers as to how accidents on the road can harm other people.”
Safety features
“It seems to me that there is a small group of people, who don’t really bother about safety features on the road because we keep hearing these sad tales of people, who have lost a loved one due to an accident,” he added.
“The death of a loved one can cause so much harm and bring a lot of grief to a family, because it is nearly impossible for someone to overcome or recover from the loss of someone so close to them. Maybe there needs to be a better method of conveying the message of how accidents cause such harm in the future.”
“52 per cent of all the accidents that occurred in the month of August happened at night,” said NCSI. The agency also published a graph showing the number of traffic accidents in Oman, based on governorates during August 2017.
Muscat and South Al Batinah governorates experienced the most accidents in the Sultanate, amounting to 29.7 per cent and 16.8 per cent, respectively, of the total number of accidents in August, according to the NCSI.
Additionally, Dhofar represented 10.8 per cent of the accidents and Al Sharqiyah North represented 8.2 per cent. Last month, there was a 16.5 per cent drop in the accident rate across the Sultanate, compared with the number of accidents as of July, 2016.
The number of accidents declined to 2,349, from 2,814 during the same period last year, according to figures released by NCSI. The total number of accidents was pegged at 385 in June, compared with 360 accidents being reported in July.