Qatar is planning to reduce the number of road fatalities from 227 in 2015 to 130 by 2022, a senior Ministry of Interior (MoI) official has said.
"We have also set a target to reduce the number of serious injuries from 550 in a year currently to 300 by 2022," National Traffic Safety Office General Manager Kim Jraiw said at the Qatar Transport Safety Forum on Monday.
Jraiw said Qatar's target to reduce the number of road deaths is in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal that requires all countries to bring down road fatalities by 50 percent by 2020.
Although road fatalities in Qatar have been reduced significantly in the last few years, various measures are being implemented to reduce it further by at least 15 deaths per year.
He said the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) has increased the number of state agencies from 15 to 30 for proper implementation of traffic safety measures.
He said roads will soon have separate lanes for high-occupancy vehicles to minimise the number of deaths and injuries in accident cases.
Citing speeding as the main reason for deaths on Qatar roads, he said that many new speed cameras are being installed to catch violators.
Number of traffic signals and intersections will also be increased for proper regulation of traffic, he added.
NTSE has also issued directive for implementing 'Vision Zero' road traffic safety standard in all the upcoming road projects.
Vision Zero, which aims to achieve a highway system with no fatalities or serious injuries, is being gradually implemented on Qatar roads since 2014, he said.
There are plans to cover all the highways under the system, he added.
About the role of vehicle restraint system (VRS) in significantly reducing fatalities on the Shamal Road, he said the system is being implemented on important link roads like Al Huwailah Link Road, Umm Birkah Link Road and Al Khor Link Road.
He said reducing the number of road accidents is important from the economic point of view as such accidents put a huge burden on the government.
Citing figures from the UN, he said if the requirement for all countries to reduce the number of road accident fatalities to 50 percent by 2020 is attained, the world economy will save $1trillion."We do not have the right mechanism currently to specify how much Qatar will save, but certainly the country will benefit from it," he added.
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