Fatal accidents on the decline

Manama : Bahrain recorded a noticeable decline of 45 per cent in the number of fatal accidents when compared to that in the first half of years 2015 and 2016, a top Works Ministry official said. 

“The application of the new traffic law has greatly contributed to this percentage,” said Roads Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Huda Fakhro in a statement yesterday. 

Fakhro also said that the Ministry strictly monitors traffic safety requirements for all new projects during implementation phases; beginning with planning and design and ending with the launch of the project. 

“This method has been applied to 59 projects this year,” Fakhro said adding: “39 traffic safety studies have also been done on different roads in the Kingdom.”

Fakhro further said that the ministry is planning to install more speed humps in residential areas and has received requests for “224-speed humps” of which 81 have been approved.

The decisions were taken after visiting the locations and based on the existence of mosques, ma’atams (community centres), schools, kindergartens, parks and other public facilities. The presence of unexpected or dangerous curves that obscure visibility, the existence of dangerous interchanges or natural barriers or corners that obscure vision were also considered, the statement said.  The Undersecretary said that the Ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Traffic General Directorate, is carrying out studies on roads parallel to schools and that 8 educational districts have been studied. Most applications requested construction of speed humps, pedestrian crossings and barriers to prevent random crossing.