Major General Mohamed Saad Al Kharji, Director General of Traffic Department, addressing the 7th Road Safety Forum at the Sheraton Grand Doha Resort & Convention Hotel in Doha. Pic: Salim Matramkot/The Peninsula
Doha: Qatar is leader in the field of “traffic safety management” in the Middle East and the third world countries as the rate of arrival of ambulances to accident sites in Doha is seven minutes while it is eight minutes for outside Doha, in 91 percent of cases.
This came yesterday during the 7th Road Safety Forum of the Coordinators concerned in the implementation of the National Road Safety Strategy which was held at Sheraton Hotel under the slogan “Forum of Extraordinary Plans”. The forum made several recommendations regarding traffic safety. One of the recommendations is to focus on reducing accidents in the five geographic traffic areas that contain more than 90 percent of deaths identified by the National Office.
Another recommendation is to support the National Office for the implementation of the FIFA 2022 plan and to ensure its timely implementation, and emphasise the implementation of pedestrians projects on time and to reduce pedestrians mortality from 32 percent in 2016 to 17 percent by 2022.
The event was under the patronage of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee, and in the presence of Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti, who is also the First Vice-Chairman of the Committee.
Addressing the event, Major General Mohamed Saad Al Kharji, Director General of Traffic, Second Deputy Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said that “Qatar is currently the leader in the field of “traffic safety management” in the Middle East and the third world countries.”
Dr. Ibrahim Al Naimi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, member of the National Committee and Head of the Task Force for the following up the implementation of the strategy, stressed the importance of concerted efforts of ministries and concerned parties in achieving the national strategy for traffic safety, pointing out that the National Committee formed a subcommittee to follow up the plans of ministries and concerned bodies at national level.
Dr Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, Director of the Public Health Department at the Ministry of Public Health, said that everyone has the right to take pride in what has been achieved by all sectors in the country to improve traffic safety. He pointed out that the response time for emergency calls has been improved to five seconds or less. The department is also working for the development and expansion of community initiatives to provide care for the patient in the home after receiving treatment.
