Joint efforts yield results as road accidents fall by 60%

After working together for several years, the Sultanate of Oman has succeeded in bringing down the number of road accidents by more than 60 per cent over the past five years, thanks to a joint effort of the Royal Oman Police (ROP) and many other government and private organisations.

According to the report published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the number of road accidents in Oman fell to 1,539, at a rate of one accident every six hours at the end of 2021, resulting in a reduction of 60 per cent over the past five years.

Authorities say will continue to educate and create awareness on practising safe driving on roads through various campaigns, brochures and pamphlets and educating the public through electronic means to help reduce casualties on roads.

However, the onus to sustain the results and to achieve the zero road accidents is on people.

During the above mentioned period, road accidents left 1,621 people injured and 434 dead. Omanis constituted 76 per cent of the injured and 66 per cent of the dead as at the end of 2021.

By 2021, speeding was cited as the main cause of road accidents (53.3 per cent accounting for 820 accidents), while collisions topped the list of ‘types’ of road accidents (41.1 per cent). Data shows that most accidents (58 per cent) in Oman occur outside the boundaries of cities, and that accidents along straight roads accounted for 51 per cent of the total number, of which 809 occurred during nights and 730 during daytime.

Ahmed al Khadouri, expert at the Safety Institute, says a conscious approach by people can only sustain the benefits, and it is every individual’s responsibility towards the society to make our roads accident-free.

He said that nearly 1.2 million people are killed in road accidents globally, resulting in more than 20 million people becoming either disabled or injured and about 2.1 per cent of deaths annually across the globe are from road accidents.

It is also reported that youth are the most vulnerable to road accidents and they lose their lives on roads during their most productive lifetime, which is between 25 and 44 years of age.

Additionally, around 90 per cent of deaths happened are in middle and low-income countries.

Statistics show that the number of vehicles registered in Oman in 2021 stood at 1.55 million, down by 0.3 per cent as against 2020. Private vehicles constituted 79.4 per cent of the total number of vehicles registered in Oman.

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