The road to Salalah is a well-travelled route for tourists from the UAE who make the trip to Oman in their thousands on holidays and short breaks each year.
Salalah itself is in the far south in the Dhofar region of the country, close to the border with Yemen.
From Abu Dhabi, the 1,330km journey is around a 14-hour drive.
The distance from Muscat to Salalah is around 1,000km, between the two international airports.
On the highway from Muscat to Salalah, after Adam, it is single track road except for a few patches of double tracks.
There are no street lights for almost 30km after Adam.
The distance from Adam to Salalah is about 700km. There are lights for 20-30km after Haima, then again none until Salalah on the final 430-km stretch.
Most roads in and around Salalah are single carriage, with a few double carriage stretches.
Road construction work is in full swing in Salalah and by the end of 2013, the city will have a new road network with all the single carriageway roads converted to dual and six-lane roads.
Currently, road conditions are good and local police say most of the accidents are due to visitors’ lack of knowledge of roads and conditions.
During the Khareef season fog and continuous drizzling rain reduce visibility sometimes to as little as 10 metres.
Low visibility can also contribute to high rates of accidents during tourist season that runs from July to the end of September.
This year, due to Ramadan coinciding with the Khareef season, the turnout was low.
But during the Eid holidays it peaked to an all time high with over 94,000 visitors to the small town in about 12 days.
There were too many cars in Salalah for a small town surrounded by mountains.
Another fatal car accident happened on the road this Eid when an expat family’s car rolled over on August 20 when a tyre burst and three were killed, including a child who died in hospital five days later.
This Eid holiday, the fatal accidents that took place in the Central (Wusta) Region between Adam and Haima, were mostly due to dangerous overtaking.
Between August 15 and August 24 this year, 56 people died in road accidents across Oman.
