Roads ‘&’ Transport Authority (RTA) called on motorists and road users to comply with the prescribed speed limits and refrain from reckless driving which leads to horrific accidents ‘&’ injuries claiming the lives and inflicting extensive losses to public properties.
This Call was made as part of the sweeping Haseb Safety Campaign; the first phase of which was recently launched by the RTA. The Campaign aims to educate the public in general and road users in particular on the importance of complying with safety regulations, particularly traffic ‘&’ safe driving rules. The overall objective of the Campaign is to minimize the accidents leading to fatalities ‘&’ serious injuries on main roads by 40 percent by 2015. This requires impacting the attitudes of individuals ‘&’ drivers, and adopting engineering initiatives designed to step up safety level, curb serious accidents, and minimize the resulting casualties ‘&’ losses within the drive to fulfill the vision of the RTA of providing Safe ‘&’ Smooth Transport for All.
Hussain Al Banna, Director of Traffic at RTA Traffic ‘&’ Roads Agency, said that over speeding was a bad practice on the part of drivers incompliant with driving ‘&’ traffic regulations, exposing the lives of all road users to danger. “Over speeding is responsible for about 80 percent of traffic accidents and claims hundreds of lives every year. Statistics reveal that the number of casualties is continuously on the rise as over speeding in 2008 resulted in 375 casualties ranging from death to body injury and various losses.
He added: “Excessive speed is associated with serious traffic offences such as the lack of leaving sufficient distance between vehicles, lane changing, and jumping the red signal as the driver fails to stop the vehicle on the right time when the light signal changes. Speeding is also the major cause of traffic accident fatalities as the probability of involvement in fatal traffic accidents is doubled with the increase of the driving speed by each 5 km/h above the prescribed speed limit.
The Law is very stringent on over speeding cases as it is one of the most hazardous offences to both drivers and road users. According to law, exceeding the specified speed limit by 60 km/h warrants a 1,000 dirham fine, 12 traffic points and impounding the vehicle for 30 days. Race-driving on public roads offence is another form of over speeding which attracts a 2,000 dirham fine, 12 traffic points and impounding the vehicle for 30 days.
