Road safety laws must be enacted and enforced in UAE

If laws are passed and drivers comply, road deaths would plummet, experts said.

ABU DHABI // Laws making it obligatory for drivers and passengers of all vehicles to use safety equipment – such as seat belts, helmets and child seats – must be enacted and enforced, experts say.

“If these laws were passed and all drivers complied, the numbers of deaths would most likely plummet,” said Robert Hodges, chief operating officer at Emirates Driving Institute.

Thomas Edelmann, founder of the website Road Safety UAE, agreed. “The introduction of a holistic seat belt law, protecting our children and back-seat passengers, has long been overdue.”

The 2013 Global Status Report on Road Safety, which was based on 2010 data, suggested that three key safety factors should be included in any such federal laws enacted in the UAE: mandatory seat belts, child car seats and motorcycle helmet standards.

“In the UAE we are falling short in all three of these aspects,” said Simon Labbett, regional director for Transport Research Laboratory. “These are areas that need attention but more importantly a process that will enable change.”

Also required, he said, would be a high-level committee supported by road safety experts to guide the decisions and ensure that the UAE becomes a regional road safety leader. “The UAE’s legislation, by international standards, is lagging behind,” Mr Labbett said. “We have some fundamental gaps in our vehicle classifications that make the regulation and safety of vehicles difficult to control. Of particular concern is the minibuses that are not speed-regulated and are permitted to have poor engineering safety.”

The UAE should also consider passing a law regulating the power of vehicles that can be driven by young and inexperienced drivers for the first three years of driving, Mr Hodges said.

“It is madness that an 18-year-old with no experience can jump straight into a high-performance ‘supercar’ immediately after passing the road test,” he said. “This practice has been banned in the West for decades.”

He also suggested a graduated licensing system for motorcyclists, requiring them to go through stages of training and qualification to move from basic motorcycles to various performance options to ‘superbikes’.

“In the West there are three clear advancement stages recommended,” Mr Hodges said. “We in the UAE should benchmark against these.”

Authorities should also pass and enforce laws banning over-tinting of vehicle windows. “If people want complete privacy, that’s OK, but these people should sit in the back seats and be driven by someone else,” he said.

A government-produced road code that provides guidance for standards of behaviour of all road users is missing, Mr Labbett said. “It should be user-friendly and the single point document used by children in schools, by drivers when learning to drive, in courts when determining whether driver behaviour fell below the standard of a reasonable and prudent driver, and for visitors when driving or walking in the UAE,” he said.

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More on UAE road safety:

■ UAE road deaths sharply decreasing every year

■ Safety should be a key feature of driving courses in UAE

■ UAE increasing efforts to keep pedestrians safe