Dubai: Since the beginning of the year, around 25,000 traffic fines have been issued to pedestrians who cross the roads from non-designated areas, a senior police official told Gulf News.
It is a crime for a pedestrian to cross a road from an inappropriate area, and the offence will attract a fine of Dh200, said Lieutenant Colonel Jamal Al Ameri, head of Public Relations at the Directorate of Traffic and Patrols, qouting the Federal Traffic Law.
“Pedestrians are advised to cross roads from the zebra crossing only or from the pedestrian bridges, otherwise they will face fines,” he said.
Al Ameri said that police have stepped up patrols on the roads and have issued fines to jaywalkers.
Last year, 333 pedestrian accidents took place in Dubai roads and 46 people died in those accidents.
Lieutenant Colonel Hamoud Saeed Ajedan Al Ameri, Director of Deira Police Patrols at the General Traffic Department at Dubai police, told Gulf News that last year 17 pedestrian deaths took place on Deira roads while 14 deaths happened on the Bypass Road. Another 15 deaths took place on Emirates road last year.
“We have this year, a traffic plan to reduce the number of deaths of pedestrians on roads and we have teams of police patrols who are monitoring roads, mainly on those roads which witness large numbers of such deaths,” he said.
Al Ameri said one of the main roads in Deira that witness pedestrian deaths or accidents is Oman Road and Damascus Road and Al Khaleej Road.
“Pedestrian deaths also used to took place on the highways were there are labour accommodations in the area,” he said.
He added that police campaigns to raise the awareness of the public, especially among labourers, have helped in reducing the deaths.
But he warned of blood money payments to families could be affected in cases of pedestrian deaths on the roads.
“In cases of deaths of pedestrians, if investigations have revealed that the traffic accident took place because the pedestrian violated the traffic law, then the court could not sentence the driver to pay blood money to the victims’ family or the amount of blood money will be reduced greatly,” he said.
Al Ameri said Dh200 fines will be given on the spot to offending pedestrians.
“Police will ask for the ID of the offender and will take all their details, the fine will be issued and they will be asked to visit traffic police departments to pay the fine,” he added.
