Dubai: Fifteen schoolchildren had a narrow escape with mild and moderate injuries when their school bus veered into the hard shoulder, running over an Asian man and injuring a woman on Sunday morning.
The Asian man was run over by the school bus when he was parked on the hard shoulder of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road to change his car’s tyre.
Colonel Saif Muhair Al Mazroui, Director of the Dubai Traffic Police Department, said the crash injured 15 pupils in the bus, in addition to the woman who was in the deceased man’s car. The woman sustained severe injuries.
The accident occurred at 8am, when the man had tyre trouble and parked on the hard shoulder on the right side before the Al Khawaneej exit on Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road Abu Dhabi bound.
Al Mazroui said that while the man was fixing his tyre, the school bus veered off the road towards the man and ran over him before hitting the parked car.
He said the intensity of the impact caused the car to skid off the road and end up in the sandy area.
The injured were taken to Rashid Hospital.
This comes a week after the accident that claimed the lives of 13 workers on their way to work from Umm Al Quwain to Jebel Ali that took place in the early hours of the day on Emirates Road. The accident also injured 15 others.
The hard shoulder
Police officials have been emphasising the dangers of parking on the hard shoulder and how it should only be used in cases of emergencies.
Brig Hussain Ahmad Al Harthi, head of the Directorate of Traffic and Patrols at Abu Dhabi Police, had said in an earlier interview that the hard shoulder of the road is meant to be used only in case of emergencies by ambulances and police cars, in order to save people’s lives and provide immediate care.
He said this following the directorate’s announcement of a punishment of up to a month in prison, as well as 10 black points and a Dh600 fine that could be issued to drivers who overtake others using the hard shoulder.
“The penalty is in line with the Federal Traffic Law which covers the UAE as a whole and not just Abu Dhabi. Drivers who overtake others using the hard shoulder represent a danger to everyone else on the road because sometimes they come in the way of ambulances or police cars,” Brig Al Harthi said.
Other accidents
A driver was severely injured on Emirates Road on Saturday when he was driving his light vehicle and entered the road without ensuring it was empty. The man crashed into a heavy vehicle and, due to the impact of the crash, Al Mazroui said, the light vehicle kept moving forward and hit another heavy vehicle.
The accident occurred at 6.30am on Emirates Road in the direction of Abu Dhabi, after the Dubai-Al Ain bridge.
Also on Saturday, a four-wheel drive crashed into the glass-front of a restaurant in Al Quoz Area behind the Al Quoz traffic police building. The crash happened because the driver lost control of the vehicle when turning.
An elderly women was mildly injured because she jumped out of a car out of fear.
