Qatar has accomplished remarkable achievement regarding road safety in the first phase of National Traffic Safety Strategy and the whole world is recognizing the efforts made so far by the country to achieve this UN sustainable development goal.
Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani unveiled the action plan for the second phase of National Traffic Safety Strategy (2018-2022).
Qatar with its dedicated commitment has already achieved a lot in this regard. The first phase of National Traffic Safety Strategy has contributed to decreasing the number of deaths from 235 deaths (average of 14 deaths per 100,000) in 2013, to 178 deaths (average of 6.93 deaths per 100,000) in 2016.
This has led to making the State of Qatar one of the countries with a distinguished position in traffic safety. Qatar holds an average much lower road accident deaths than the world and according to the first UN report of 2016, it ranked 49th globally and the first among Arab countries in achieving the UN development goals.
Through a video message during the launch of the second action plan of the National Traffic Safety Strategy 2018-2022, United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt lauded the efforts made by Qatar and concerned authorities to reduce the number of deaths due to road accidents and to achieve the sustainable development by 2030.
He also said the indexes indicate Qatar has been moving towards the right direction that helped Qatar to be placed at the forefront of Middle East countries in reducing the number of road accidents.
The second phase of action plan of National Traffic Safety Strategy aims to decrease the number of deaths by 50 percent and reduce major injuries to 400 in 2022. It also aims to implement the UN development goals related to sustainable cities, build road and transport networks, adopt a non-traditional planning system and reduce congestion by 5 percent annually.
In addition, it aims to reduce pedestrian deaths to 17 percent out of total deaths by 2022, which was 32 percent in 2016.
To make the plan more result-oriented, the implementation of the second action plan has been assigned to more than 35 government bodies compared to 13 in the first phase, as well as increased to more than 350 plans compared to 198 in the first phase.
Director General of Traffic Brigadier Muhammad Saad Al Kharji, the Second Deputy Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said that Qatar has been able to hold a prestigious position in the field of traffic safety since the launch of the first national traffic safety strategy in January 2013.
