Oman Government powerless to stop continuing carnage on roads. And who's the lucky winner of tickets to Snow Patrol?

Photo: Multiple deaths in Oman are a daily occurance. [Oman Observer]

Amid the continual boosterism to Oman's tourism sector that abounds in the press of late, the recent tragic death of 7 people in a head-on crash made even the international news.

Six Indians, Omani killed in road accident (Khaleej Times)
5 March 2012MUSCAT - Seven people — six Indians and an Omani — were killed in a horrific road accident in Bahla, near Nizwa in the interior Dhakhliya governorate, on Sunday.

Another Omani sustained serious injuries in the head-on collision between two pick-up vans and was taken to hospital, police said. He was in intensive care in critical condition. One of the vehicles caught fire due to the impact of the crash.

By my calculations if you drive on Oman's roads you have on average a roughly 0.1% chance of dying, every year. Of course, the actual odds for a young Omani male must be much, much higher I'd guess.

About 1 in a thousand people in Oman are killed per year (note, you have to correct official figures for children and deaths reported post the scene). How's that for an Oman cultural experience, tourists? Maybe we could sell guided tours from the cruise liners to go see a few genuine Omani funerals?

But never fear, The Council of Ministers are aware of the problem folks.

Oman urges people to abide by traffic rules (Khaleej Times)
5 March 2012 MUSCAT - The unabated rise in traffic deaths and injuries has prompted Oman’s cabinet to appeal for cooperation among all sections of the society to address the grave issue.

Expressing its “deep sorrow” over mounting road accidents, the Council of Ministers, at a meeting here, called upon “everyone to abide by traffic rules and regulations to save the lives of citizens, expatriates and visitors.”

It underlined the importance of participation by the public and private sectors in an annual competition the country organises to spread awareness about traffic safety and to “enhance the culture of safe use of roads and means of transportation.”
...

Ahh yes, the ever popular 'King Canute' method of fixing a problem*.

In this case they are using the mild version of Canute - just tell people to "obey the rules and drive carefully please". The 'Advanced Canute' - seen elsewhere in Omani government - would make it illegal to die on the roads, along with signs along roads warning people that if they die it's their own fault.

Hey, a conference to discuss the problem would be awesome. Maybe an International conference. And an investigation and a report from the relevant departments, naturally. And some posters, and events to educate the public.

None of this will work.

The nice thing about this problem is that it's very hard to not count dead bodies. In the short-term, if you have the money, the King Canute method works against unemployment, for instance. But as more people die on the roads the bodies can't be swept under the carpet**. Oman is going to either have to get serious about it, or admit the failings of current policy. Unless high road deaths are the secret official policy - afterall, it helps lower the unemployment rate, increases GDP per person, and is good for increasing the car sales of Bahwan et al.

If only the outcome of other aspects of Government policy were so transparent.



Meanwhile,
HM re-re-shuffles cabinet of Ministers

Royal Decree No 11/ 2012 appoints Ali bin Masoud bin Ali al Sunaidy as Minister of Commerce and Industry; Shaikh Saad bin Mohammed bin Said al Mardhouf al Saadi as Minister of Sports Affairs; Shaikh Abdulmalik bin Abdullah bin Ali al Khalili as Minister of Justice; Sayyid Mohammed bin Sultan bin Hamoud al Busaidy as Minister of State and Governor of Dhofar; Ahmed bin Nasser bin Hamad al Mehrzi as Minister of Tourism; and Dr Abdulmunim bin Mansour bin Said al Hasani as Minister of Information.

Interesting. We only just had a new Minister of Tourism appointed. Soon I'll publish an investigative report on the goings on at the Ministry of Tourism and it's development arm, OMRAN. I wonder if the replacement is related?

More interesting was the formation of a new super "Supreme Judicial Council", reporting to HM directly and with all decisions needing HM approval, to administer the courts seperately from the Ministry of Justice. This helps to increase the independence of the bench, and finally separates the Government department responsible for prosecution from that of administering justice. That's great news.


Contest for Snow Patrol tickets - Winner!!
Our competition for the free 'pit pass' tickets to see Snow Patrol was won by "Al", who will be at the front seeing the awesome band's first Middle East gig. Thanks to HiFM and Alive Oman.




Al dodged the security, and Mission Impossible-style sent me some great pics of the scene at Blue City in Al Sawadi. This will get me on to finishing part 3 of the saga, as long anticipated! (But if you still have any pics, or are driving past Al Sawadi resort, send them to me! Just give date and if you want photo credit or not.)

There are still a few tickets I think for the show on Sunday the 11th March at the InterCon gardens. But you'd better be quick. You can get them from the Bose store in Qurum, Al Ghazal Pub at the InterCon, or the MQ box office for Alive Oman. They cost RO 25 or RO 50 for the Fan Pit.


* This common metaphor is a bit unfair to ol' Canute. He was trying to show his fawning staff that he was not almighty, so he instructed the tide back, and thus demonstrated he was powerless.

** As blogged about ad nauseum, the ROP do their best to make the number as small as they can already, by only reporting those killed at the scene, and not counting later deaths in hospital nor counting children.

Oman - stop killing your children. You don't have the right.

Jet Driver blogged about the lack of child restraints used in cars here. While the comments drifted somewhat off topic, the issue of Oman's road deaths - adults and children - continues to become a national issue.

I just saw a Top Gear episode where a train collides with a car at a level crossing, in slow motion.

Omani kids need to be shown in school what happens to them in an accident, in slow motion, and what save driving means. They could use examples in Physics classes as problems in velocity and momentum.

This is your standard Omani Mum or Dad, holding a baby in the front seat without seat belts, naturally. When, surprise! That minibus is pulling out!!! OMG!!!


Maybe we can get at the adults behaviour through the children. I'd start there, coupled with more traffic cops and on the spot fines for no seat belts or child restraints.

And, some Omani engineering company needs to invent a way to reasonably safely restrain 4 or 5 kids in the back seat ... 7 or 8 kids a family is a cultural problem.

This is with a car seat.



Although, its far better to have small kids in a rear facing position until 4 or 5 yrs old. But remember to NEVER place a rear-facing car seat in a seat with an airbag. Back seat is best (rear facing), or you can have the dealer deactivate the front passenger airbag.



But can you imagine what the kids would do without seat restraints? This video of with/without belts is with adults.

ROP skews road fatality statistics – what are your real chances?

How many people are killed on the roads in Oman every year? Care to guess?

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...