Road accidents decline by 66% in five years

Muscat: The concerted efforts of the authorities, especially the Royal Oman Police (ROP) has helped the traffic accidents and deaths to come down over the past five years.

The number of traffic accidents reported in Oman decreased during the past five years by 66.2 per cent, from 6,279 in 2015 to 2, 120 accidents in 2019. It may be noted that nearly 1.55 million roads use 40,000 km of paved roads in the Sultanate.

Apart from major awareness campaigns, a new and stricter traffic law came into effect on March 1, 2018 that was made to make our roads safer for everyone.

The key highlight of the law was that motorists getting more than 12 black points in a year will have their driving licences suspended for six months.

If the motorist gets more than 12 points again the following year, the licence will be seized for a year. If the black points exceed more than 12 for a third consecutive year, the licence will be cancelled. The driver will have to take the driving test afresh after paying RO100 for a new licence.

According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), 4,700 accidents were reported in 2016, 3,800 in 2017, and 2,800 in 2018. The time for a traffic accident to take place dropped from every two hours in 2015 and 2016 to an accident every four hours in 2019.

The Governorate of Muscat reported the maximum number of accidents in 2019 (27.7 per cent), followed by Al Dakhiliyah 14.7 per cent, South Al Batinah 13.3 per cent, Dhofar Governorate 11.4 per cent, North Al Batinah 10.7 per cent, North Al Sharqiyah 6.1 per cent, South Al Sharqiyah 5.4 per cent, Al Dhahirah 4.2 per cent, Al Wusta 3.9 per cent, Al Buraimi 2.1 per cent, Musandam 0.5 per cent.

In 2019, 903 accidents were due to collisions between vehicles (42.6 per cent), followed by 419 incidents of vehicle hitting the fixed objects (19.8 per cent).

The percentage of accidents that occurred at night was 53 while 1,098 accidents or 51.8 per cent of total mishaps were due to speed.

Meanwhile, 511 accident deaths and 2,442 injuries were recorded in 2019 of which Omanis accounted for 74.5 per cent of injuries and 62.2 per cent of deaths.

The overspeeding was cause for 46.3 per cent of injuries and 52.6 per cent of deaths due to road accidents.

The report also revealed that 265,000 driving licences were either newly issued and and renewed in 2019.