The UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt, has praised Qatar’s commitment to improve traffic safety and its achievements in reducing the number of accident victims.
“I am also delighted that you are ready to share your experience and the results you have achieved in improving traffic safety in general,” he said yesterday while addressing the International Traffic Safety Conference (ITSC), which is being held for the first time in the State of Qatar to promote Qatar’s international status in terms of road safety.
Todt noted that of the 1.3 billion accidents in the world on highways, 90 percent of them occur in low-income countries, stressing that “we have to do something about them. We must increase and strengthen investments and develop a new approach to deal with this, focusing on the main objective of the Conference, which is the traffic safety of all.”
He said that the national goal of Qatar is consistent with these general goals and calls for reducing the proportion of traffic accidents by half by 2020. “Through these national goals, he hopes that Qatar will continue to take its own approach to eliminating accidents by 2050.”
He emphasized the need of focusing all sectors of road uses not only on vehicles. “We also need to develop a comprehensive infrastructure suitable for pedestrians, children and the elderly to allow them freedom of movement away from vehicles,” he said.
