Traffic-awareness lecturer hopes game will leave players anything but board

Emirati Naseer Ahmed Al Yaqoobi has created a road-safety board game similar to Monopoly that he hopes will have more of an affect on children than long lectures.

Game creator Naseer Al Yaqoobi believes his road-safety game may be a better teaching tool than the many hundreds of lectures on the subject he has given. Satish Kumar / The National

RAS AL KHAIMAH // A traffic awareness lecturer has come up with a way of making the the road safety message fun to learn.

Emirati Naseer Al Yaqoobi, from RAK, has created a board game and hoped that learning road safety will be entertaining, especially for children.

“As a traffic lecturer for more than 18 years, I have concluded after more than 500 lectures that there are no tools that can teach people traffic rules in an easy and creative way that is also accepted by society and families,” the 45-year-old RAK Police employee said.

Everyone plays Monopoly, he said, and its rules stick in their minds. His game is a contest and thinking that, in the end, it is just a game, there is no fear from traffic police or boredom of a lecture.

The idea of a road safety game struck him seven years ago but Mr Al Yaqoobi has not yet met someone who could finance it and take it to market.

“There is encouragement but no money and this is the main reason why the game is still in its box, not in the market,” he said, adding that he has the game registered with the Ministry of Economy.

Mr Al Yaqoobi, a member of Emirates Traffic Safety Society, said that road safety is for everyone as “if you are not a driver, you are a passenger, and if you are not a passenger, you are a walker, so traffic signs are for all”.

He was confident that players of the game remember 80 per cent of traffic signs and rules mentioned on the board. “Through my long experience in the traffic field, after five days the player can remember 80 per cent of traffic signs and laws,” he said.

Instead of buying land or businesses, players buy traffic signs for an amount printed on the board, and the banker, in turn, gives the player the title deed for that sign.

The owner of a particular sign can also build traffic lights and charge other players who land on their traffic signs.

“I used the most important and globally known signs and there is also a violations section that teaches kids from an early age that there are consequences for breaking the law,” Mr Al Yaqoobi said.

“My goal is not money, my goal is to spread traffic awareness that ensures people’s lives in an era of many car accidents.”