Learning from the past: traffic safety in the eyes of affected local community in Abu Dhabi City, United Arab Emirates

Abstract

United Arab Emirates (UAE) witnessed over the past few decades unprecedented economic growth associating the oil and gas prosperous industry. This fact along with the fast construction process of new road systems and infrastructure services generated heavy traffic volumes resulting in numerous traffic accidents. This work, through using a special safety survey/interview, targets only people from Abu Dhabi’s local community that had a prior accident experience either as a passenger or as a driver. The aim is to understand the traffic accident story from an eyewitness to draw a better and complete picture for the safety problem in UAE. The survey covers four different accident’s categories including personal details, injuries details, vehicles details, and accidents details. Detailed analysis is performed for all of the collected data resulting in a number of solid conclusions. Age group between 18–30 dominates most accidents that can be related to the lack of experience factor. Over speeding or exceeding the speed limit appears to be a major factor of traffic accidents in Abu Dhabi. Human factors such as not using the seat belt play a major role in accidents occurrence. The article presents more conclusions that can be used for further traffic safety studies in UAE.

Keywords:

• Traffic accidents
• Affected local community
• Safety survey

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Mohammad Ezzat and Muyad Hammouda for their help in data collection and analysis efforts during the project period.