Reckless driving, road conditions reverse three-year downturn of accidents — safety advocate

AMMAN — Road accidents have been on the rise since 2016, according to an expert and official figures, with the blame directed at both human error and road conditions.

According to Public Security Department (PSD) statistics, there were 10,835 road accidents in 2016, resulting in 17,435 injuries and 750 deaths, while 2015 saw 9,712 accidents, leading to 16,139 injuries and 608 deaths.

"Each accident has a different reason. Local and global studies indicate that  90 per cent of accidents are caused by human behaviour.  However, from our point of view as engineers, we know that  road conditions play a big role," Nizar Al Abedi, president of the Jordanian Society for the Prevention of Road Accidents (JSPRA), told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

He said that the fact that accidents tend to occur in one place, and not in another, are due to “road faults, which cause drivers to commit errors”, in turn leading to accidents. 

"The Desert Highway, for an example, has lots of flaws, and that's why a lot of accidents happen there.  The real reason behind this is the financial constraints of the Ministry of Public Works,” Abedi argued.

He noted that the JSPRA’s analysis and recommendations are based on PSD statistics.  

Abedi said that “there are almost 30 or 40 government bodies that have an influence on traffic safety”, such as the Ministry of Education and media outlets, in raising awareness of road safety. 

Drawing upon the experiences of other countries, the road safety advocate called for a unified action from the authorities.

Noting the disparity in traffic management systems between urban and rural parts of the Kingdom, Abedi acknowledged the difficulty of having a human, police presence on all roads, saying that "we can't locate a police officer every kilometre or mile".

To address this issue, he recalled a PSD official who said that “we have to keep improving and looking for new traffic control technologies."

Foremost among such technologies are speed cameras, the existence of which “is very important, because they make the drivers think twice before breaking the law", he said, commending Greater Amman Municipality for installing cameras on the capital’s roads.