Reckless drivers remain a challenge for traffic police

It was a sad day for the friends of young Mohammad who gathered at a Manama cemetery last week to bid farewell to their friend who had been killed in a car accident on the King Fahd causeway a few days earlier.

The young men could barely contain themselves; some were crying and weeping over their friend's body. For them it was "a huge loss."

Mohammad was among the dozens of people who are killed every year on the roads.

In fact, the figures, obtained from the General Directorate of Traffic, show that young people who have relatively new driving licences less than 5 years old comprise the group most commonly involved in accidents, or 20 per cent of the total in 2004.

The statistics show that 228 people were killed and 9,805 injured between 2002 and 2004.

Young drivers are often accused of not paying attention to the road as many are pre-occupied with their cell phones or stereos.

But speeding remains the main cause of accidents, the numbers show.

And many of these accidents curiously take place on or near the King Fahd causeway between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, an official at the Traffic Directorate said.

He said that traffic signs and signals were "visible and clear enough" along the entire length of the causeway.

"The causeway is one of the most important highways, which we cannot afford to ignore. Police patrols are taking care of it around the clock," he added.

Nevertheless, a number of accidents, some of them fatal, have occurred on the causeway, which is not regarded by the directorate as a dangerous road.

"We consider the traffic on the causeway to be among the smoothest and most disciplined in the country," said the official.

"However, this is not enough," he added, stressing that young, reckless drivers were the cause of most accidents.

"Speed is still a big challenge; it is our worst enemy. We realise as specialists that lights and road design have nothing to do with the increasing number of accidents. Statistics confirm that irresponsible driving and careless manners are behind each and every fatal accident," he said.

Rasha Al Ebrahim is an Arab journalist based in Manama