MANAMA: The Kingdom of Bahrain has reported a significant yearly drop of 40.48% in deaths due to traffic accidents or equal to 3.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2016. The data shows that in 2016 total deaths due to traffic accidents were 47 compared with 76 or equal to 6.39 deaths per 100,000 in 2015, thanks to the effective monitoring of the traffic through cameras and enhanced police patrol on all major highways across the country, says Shaikh Abdulrahman bin Abdulwahab Alkhalifa, Director, General Directorate of Traffic, at the Ministry of Interior.
Shaikh Abdulrahman, who was joined by Col. Mohammed Bin Daraj, Deputy Director at Traffic Directorate, and Osama Mohammed Bahar, Head of Culture Department at Traffic Directorate, said drop in deaths due traffic accidents was attributable to effective and intensive monitoring of traffic through cameras and traffic police patrolling of all major highways and roads across the Kingdom.
“Bahrain’s record on deaths in traffic related accidents of 3.5 deaths per 100,000 is among the best in the Arab region as well as in the Middle East also when compared with the developed nations such as Singapore is 3.6 deaths per 100,000; in Singapore 3.3 deaths and in the United Kingdom 2.9 deaths,” Shaikh Abdulrahman told reporters during a Press conference held at the General Directorate of Traffic in Isa Town on Wednesday.
“Given the Kingdom’s steady improvement in road safety which led to almost forty-one per cent decrease in 2016 speaks volume of the steps taken by the Ministry of Interior and these efforts will continue in 2017 to further improve the situation through still penalties for traffic related violations,” Shaikh Abdulrahman said, adding that all efforts were on to introduce online and computer related services for the public as well for the traffic police.
“The officers will prepare reports on tablets on spot of accident scene and will be able to send them directly to the concerned insurance companies and related department helping to save the time concurrently spent by the staff at accidents directorate. Similarly, the car license renewals and payment of traffic violations are online and all these efforts help to improve the level of services efficiently and time saving manner.”
Talking about the accidents due to exceptional and continuous rain in Bahrain Osama Bahar said two deaths were reported while 1500 traffic accidents were reported during the past six days.
At end of 2016, there were 635000 registered vehicles plying on Bahraini roads up 41462 compared to 2015. The licensing directorate received 899000 learners driving license applications in 2016 while 3.953 million applications in the past five years. While driving test, requests were 96,000 in 2016 and accumulated of test for driving license was 392,000 in the past five years.
