| Kippreport.com

Feel safer on the roads

January 6, 2010 3:47 by Aarti Nagraj

Fatalities on the UAE’s roads decreased by 10 percent in 2009 according to official statistics released by the police, reports Gulf News. The road death toll fell from 1,072 in 2008 to 963 last year.

The death rate caused by traffic accidents was 15.8 per 100,000 of the population in 2007, 13.3 in 2008 and it fell to 11.8 in 2009. “Our objective is to reduce this by 1.5 percent annually,” explained Colonel Ghaith Hassan al-Zaabi, director of the Traffic Department at the Ministry of Interior. The department also hopes to reduce the number of road accidents and injuries by 5 percent every year.

“The strict enforcement of the Federal Traffic Law, which was amended in 2008 to include the black point system and heftier fines for serious offences, is the primary cause [for the fall in fatalities],” he said. The total number of traffic tickets issued increased from 4,387,791 in 2008 to 5,283,791 in 2009, and the Dubai traffic police seized 808 licenses for various offences between January and June last year.

“The severe penalties have successfully acted as a deterrent,” continued al-Zaabi. He also said that the police had increased its patrolling and monitoring to help catch violators.

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Tags: 2009, accidents, decreased, measures, traffic, UAE