Plan to prevent accidents

A comprehensive four-phased plan to check traffic accidents and speeding is underway, Colonel Saleh Ali Al Mutawa, Commander-in-Chief of Sharjah Police, told the Sharjah Consultative Council yesterday.

The policy makers also recommended that the local government should increase the budget of Sharjah Civil Defence to enable it to upgrade its equipment and hire more personnel.

They suggested the money for this will come by introducing a local law to collect fees for the services provided by the Civil Defence. They also urged for a more proactive role by the emirate in fashioning the authority's future development programme in coordination with the Federal authorities. The council, which was holding the 14th meeting of the second ordinary session of the second legislative chapter, was listening to the complaints by police officials over the increasing number of accidents in Sharjah.

They also discussed the outcome of the meetings with Colonel Ghareeb Shabaan, Director of the Sharjah Civil Defence, and reviewed the recommendations, to be submitted to the Ruler soon. "Sharjah witnesses an accident after every nine minutes, or seven accidents every hour, stemming from the 165 accidents that occur on average every day," Col Al Mutawa admitted, responding to a query from member Ahmad bin Mohammed bin Obaid Al Shamsi, said: "In addition to crime reports, the traffic is heavy on the emirate's roads and more personnel and equipment are needed to cater to the ever growing traffic and security challenges." He, however, pointed out that as part of Sharjah police's annual plans to face the challenge, the first phase of controlling traffic through the Operations Room, which uses the Global Positioning System, for catching traffic offenders is underway. Meanwhile, mobile radars are used on roads which record more traffic accidesnts but the highways with fewer radars record less. As for the fixed radars, Col Al Mutawa acknowledged these are well known to motorists, who slow down near them and then speed up after passing them.

But, he added, the second and third phases of the overall plan will see an increase in the number of radars by 16 in each phase, in the process covering most of the emirate's roads.

The fourth phase will have all the signals on the city roads connected to the Operations Room for better monitoring the traffic system. He pointed out that a study is under way to purchase speed guns for Anjad patrolling all the Sharjah roads, including the highways in the Eastern and Central regions.

"The idea is to have Anjad patrols with speed guns deployed on the city roads, and on stretches of the highways which do not as yet have radars installed on them," he told the council. Col Al Mutawa added the city roads will also be marked with speed limit signs.