Oman transport: ROP to give away 1,000 child car safety seats

Muscat: A thousand child car seats will be given away to families to raise awareness and encourage their use at the upcoming Traffic Safety Exhibition organised by the Royal Oman Police and Oman Expo.
The exhibition, which will launch on 18 October 2016 until 20 October, will give a rare chance for families to gain a free child car seat. The ROP hopes it will raise awareness and encourage future parents to use these seats to ensure the safety of their child.
“Regulations for child car seats are going to be a mandatory thing. We already have the law and we are going to implement it soon and that’s why we are having an initiative in the exhibition together with the Oman Road Safety Association (ORSA) to distribute 1000 car safety seats for children to create awareness and encourage people to use them,” said Captain Mudhar AbdulMalik Al Mazrooei from the Directorate General of Traffic at the ROP on the sidelines of a press conference announcing the exhibition.
Also among the features of the Traffic Safety Exhibition, The ROP hospital and the Traffic Safety Institute will offer free first aid courses to all visitors.
“The ROP Hospital and the Traffic Safety Institute will also offer free first aid courses to all visitors, as we would like to increase people’s awareness and ability to deal with incidents if they encounter anything on the roads. Free medical checkups, nutrition advice, and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) courses will also be offered to those visiting the expo,” said Cpt. Al Mazrooei.
The Ministry of Defence will also be featured for the first time during the exhibition in acknowledgement of their efforts towards traffic safety, independent from the ROP.
During the press conference, Brigadier-General Mohammad Awad Al Rawas, Director General of Traffic at the ROP, said, “Traffic safety is a social issue and it is everyone’s responsibility.”
Brig. Gen. Al Rawas also said that speeding is the number one cause of accidents in the Sultanate. “If everyone drove around 10 kilometers per hour under the speed limit, they would decrease the rate of accidents by 10 percent, injury by 20 percent and death by 30 percent and I’m stating this based on scientific facts,” he said.
“Of course our ambition is to have zero accidents, but we have to keep raising awareness about traffic safety,” he added.
The exhibition will feature 74 private sector establishment participations, 27 from the government including 12 Wilayat and 10 non-government organisations.
The exhibition will give the participants a platform to display their products and innovations regarding traffic safety with the chance of making deals with the responsible authorities to implement new strategies and products for safer Omani roads.