Muscat: Over the past five years, Oman has seen massive reduction in the number of road accidents, according to data shared by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) Oman. The report also indicated Oman has in the past five years witnessed a significant development in terms of high traffic safety and expansion of road networks and vehicle numbers.
The number of traffic accidents, which stood at 6,279 in 2015, came down to 2,120 in 2019, indicating a dramatic 66 per cent decrease.
The report showed more than half the road accidents happened at night. Speeding was the leading reason; other prominent reasons for accidents were carelessness, failure to maintain distance, faulty overtaking, and vehicle defects etc. Head on collision between vehicles ranked top in the type of road accidents, with crashing against a fixed object coming next. Not far behind were the pile-up at accident sites that contribute to more crashes.
The time frame indicating the number of accidents too showed a downward trend, clocking one accident in four hours in 2019, as against one every two hours in 2015 and 2016. Among the regions that showed a higher tendency in accident rate was Muscat with 27.7 per cent.
The lowest accident rate was recorded by Musandam, where Khasab city is a main attraction, with 0.5 per cent; 62 per cent of accident fatalities were Omanis. Nationals also accounted for a majority of the injured. The number of deaths due to motor accidents during last year was 511, and the number of injured was close to 2,500.
The number of vehicles has also been in the increase with 2019 accounting for an increase of 3.5 per cent from the previous year, bringing the total vehicles in Oman to 1.55 million.
