From Dubai Police to road hero: An Emirati’s mission to safer roads

Dubai: For Dr. Mustafa Aldah, road safety is not just a professional cause. It is personal.

As a child, Aldah has remembered a fellow student who lost his life in a car crash. He has admired the boy’s car in the school parking lot, making the news of his death difficult to comprehend.

Years later, that childhood memory has taken on a new meaning when Aldah’s own children were involved in a road crash.

The crash has happened after another driver failed to yield at a give-way junction. Aldah has noted that the incident showed him that road crashes are often the result of several factors coming together.

“There were many other factors involved, like road design and surfaces, speed, expectations, and general human behaviour,” Aldah told Gulf News.

Those experiences have formed Aldah’s work as the Emirati founder of Road Hero Academy, where his focus is on encouraging safer behaviour and making road safety part of everyday life.

Curiosity has always been one of Aldah’s core values. When he joined Dubai Police in 2015, he found himself inside what he has described as a huge, respected, and historic organisation, with plenty to learn.

“I remember I was the only civilian in my department to volunteer to attend the New Years event at Burj Khalifa because I wanted to see how the community celebrates and how they are kept safe, despite the hundreds of thousands of people present,” recalled Aldah.

He added, “Service inspires connection in a way that little else does and helps people find meaning and purpose, which are all things that are needed nowadays more than ever.”

Aldah has later left Dubai Police in 2019 after being headhunted for a role at the Dubai Government Workshop. It has been another opportunity to learn, this time in a smaller firm where he had greater responsibilities and exposure as part of a larger team.

"It involved daily work with cars, which I know a lot about and continue to learn and teach," shared Aldah.

His career path, combined with his personal experiences, has strengthened his focus on road safety. In 2021, he has established Road Hero Academy, a specialised driver safety and crash-prevention platform.

"Remembrance is a good way to put it. Let us honour the thousands of lives lost over the last two decades and people injured on the roads over the years by learning from their mistakes and not repeating them."

Aldah has highlighted that parents have an important role to play in establishing safe habits from the earliest years.

"Let us start small, start with the youngest ones. If you bring up your children in a child safety seat and buckle them up early, they will automatically buckle up when they are older," explained Aldah.

He has warned that allowing children to travel without appropriate restraints can instead normalise dangerous behaviour.

“If you do nothing to keep them safe and let them ride on the shelf, in the trunk, or on your lap, then you are inviting disaster into their future lives.”

For Aldah, teaching children to use proper restraints is not just about protecting them during one journey but also giving them a foundation in safety that can stay with them as they grow.

Meanwhile, his work in road safety has also taken him beyond the UAE. In 2009, Aldah has met the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace as part of an honour awarded to his university for its work in road safety.

That moment was memorable and his ambition today has been focused firmly on the future.

"I want to build systems that ensure safety becomes truly part of our culture and being, and the idea of someone dying or getting injured in a car crash becomes unheard of," said Aldah.

His journey from Dubai Police to Road Hero Academy has been driven by the same curiosity that shaped him from the beginning. But behind that curiosity is a determination to ensure that the lessons learned from past tragedies can help prevent the next one.