21.6% drop in road accident death in 2016

By, 2017-02-11

Deaths due to traffic accidents in Qatar declined by 21.6% in 2016 compared to 2015, as announced by a senior official of the General Directorate of Traffic at the Ministry of Interior said yesterday.

Deaths from road accident dropped to 178 deaths in 2016 compared to 227 deaths in 2015, according to data released by the General Directorate of Traffic last week.

The data shows that 66 of the deaths were drivers, 55 were passengers, and 57 pedestrians. 94.9% of the people who lost their lives due to road accidents in 2016 were men while 5.1 % were women. And the highest death rate was among those aged between 21-30 that represent 36.5% of total deaths, while those aged between 31-40 stood at 27%, those aged above 40 represented 22.5%.

“The main reason behind the decrease of road fatalities is improvement in the ambulance services, on top of that many other factors such as more control on roads and traffic” Brig Mohamed Saad Al Kharji, Director General of the Traffic Department said.

The improvement was not only on death rates, it was also in traffic offences.

The number of recorded traffic offences in Qatar dropped from 1,720,735 in 2015 to 1,643,209 in 2016, which means that the average daily traffic violations were approximately 4,564, with 190 violations every hour.