Saturday traffic death toll could be highest in months

Abu Dhabi: A one-year-old baby and her mother were among seven people killed in separate traffic accidents on Saturday in Abu Dhabi, Gulf News has learnt.

An Abu Dhabi traffic police spokesman said looking at the past few months, August 7 had perhaps the highest death toll due to traffic accidents in a single day.

"There were seven fatalities on Saturday in separate accidents," the police spokesman said.

Usually there were about one to three road crash victims each day, he said. In July, there were at least 30 accident victims.

He said the most gruesome accident was one which claimed three lives — a baby, her mother and a crane driver.

"The one-year-old baby and her mother, 36, were among the nine passengers in a car," he said.

The car, carrying an Omani family, collided with a crane, on the way to Tarif, he said.

The driver of the crane, a Pakistani man, was the third victim.

Rahba victim

Three pedestrians were run over and killed on the roads. A 52-year-old Sri Lankan man, identified only as G.D,, was run over around midnight in the Rahba area as he was trying to cross the road. Two Indians, 37 and 40 years old, were killed separately trying to cross the road in Musaffah.

The seventh victim was a 63-year-old Jordanian man, identified only as M.D.

The police spokesman said: "M.D. was driving along Ghantoot. A car was speeding towards him from the opposite direction. In a desperate attempt to steer his car away he rammed into an electric pole and was killed instantly".

Wrong side

Police said preliminary investigations revealed that the surviving driver in this crash was driving in the opposite direction, on the wrong side of the road, and his actions were the cause of the accident.

The police urged all to abide by the traffic rules, as this crash was a case of an innocent man paying the price for someone else's mistake.

Fatalities: Traffic fatalities during six months (January to June):