Officially, according to the ROP statistics (more on that later in this post), last year Oman saw a total of 798 road accident fatalities, plus 8530 injuries. Already by end August this year, you’ll probably not be too shocked to learn we’d beaten that record with more than 800 dead, so we’re heading for a total of more than 1000 dead this year. Given the population of Oman – including expats - is around 2.5mln, that’s a rate of 40 per 100,000. On paper that looks like about 3 times the rate in the developed world. (Note, back in 1996, when Oman was already the worst in the Middle East, it was only 24 per 100,000. MENA stats). You can see crashes here.
The problem with this official number is that it’s, er, not true.
Really.
Something you won’t be told is that the official ROP number of road fatalities in Oman is only for adults who die at the scene of the accident. It does not include people who die from their injuries in hospital later, and most shockingly it does not include deaths of children. But at least that keeps the public numbers down, huh?
So, your guess is probably as good as mine as to what the real number of fatalities is. But it’s got to be a lot higher than 800 so far.
In trying to calculate what this actual number may be, it’s hard to link the ROP stats with the more accurate but hard to decipher Ministry of Health numbers, but it looks like:
1/ deaths of children under 16 total about 15% of adult road related fatalities
2/ the number of deaths of adults from road accidents who later die in hospital is around the same as the ROP figure for those by the road side (for 2006).
Combining these guestimates, I figure this year approx. 2,300 people will die in this country from car accidents. Put another way, thats about 2 in every 1000 adults in Oman.
Shocking. And thank goodness most Omanis don’t even drink alcohol, or just imagine what the numbers would be like...
And is there anything in the media about this? Not really. The ROP try, but they don’t have the budget or the skills for effective attempts at real PR campaigns. There are no Government campaigns getting people to wear seat belts, slow down, use child seats, or to stop overtaking on blind corners. It’s a national carnage that’s getting worse every year, and nothing is really being done to stop it. Too few ROP officers, and most of the time of the few we have must be spent cutting dead and dying bodies out of cars, rather than being able to even try to enforce the few road laws.
The ROP figure for injuries (probably more accurate than fatalities) is going to be over 10,000 this year. That means, dear reader, if you live in Oman you probably have a 0.5% chance of being injured or killed by a car next year.
So, take care people. Its certainly not a piece of advice you're going to get from the Government.
And perhaps those with a predeliction for giving religious based sermons could spend more time on this part of Omani behaviour, and make a real difference to the lives of hundreds of people right now...
