Action call as UAE roads rank among world's deadliest

A new World Health Organisation (WHO) report has ranked roads in the UAE as some of the world's most dangerous.

Health chiefs have urged the UAE government to tighten motoring laws after the report showed that UAE road users are almost seven times more likely to be killed than those in Britain.

The study revealed that 37.1 people were killed on roads in the Emirates for every 100,000 people in 2007, the latest year for which UAE statistics are available, UAE daily The National reported on Tuesday.

Dr Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director general, said the poor safety record of the Emirates “deserves our highest attention” and called on officials to take action, the paper added.

Pedestrians constituted 28 percent of casualties and motorbike riders and cyclists making up another two percent, the report said.

The report said 86 percent of the 1,754,420 vehicles registered in the UAE in 2007 were motor cars, with trucks (seven percent), minibuses and vans (two percent) and buses (two percent) making up most of the remainder.

The police recorded 1,056 fatal and 11,155 non-fatal accidents in the same year with men making up 87 per cent of casualties and women 13 per cent.

The UAE is the worst performer in the region, with significantly more road deaths per head of population than Bahrain (12.1 per 100,000), Kuwait (16.9), Oman (21.3), Qatar (23.7), Saudi Arabia (29).

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