Pole Position: Safety is paramount when driving in the UAE

Barry Hope on the importance of concentration and safety on UAE roads

Having recovered from the first national race weekend, I got to do something completely different last week. And I rather enjoyed it.I was invited by top sponsorship, marketing and events agency KHP Consulting to help out with their "Yasalam Responsibly" road safety campaign.
They assembled a team of experts and local motorsport heroes to visit high schools and universities across Abu Dhabi to talk about the importance of being responsible road users.
The idea was to help raise their awareness of common driving hazards and, crucially, to persuade them to watch out for their friends and family when they are on the roads. I know how cross I get if a taxi driver answers his phone while driving or if his seat belts don't work properly.
The students were also asked to create their own road safety campaign that they have been invited to present on November 4 at the F1 FanZone on the Abu Dhabi Corniche.
I had the pleasure of presenting to some very bright and attentive students at the Abu Dhabi International School and to undergraduates at New York University (NYU). We also had 18-year-old Formula Gulf 1000 racing driver Mohamed Al Mutawaa talk about the important role of safety equipment, focus and concentration relative to safety when driving.
The statistics absolutely floored everyone present.
Worldwide, there are 3,200 deaths from traffic accidents every day. That's one every 27 seconds. The combination of not wearing seat belts, excessive speed and lack of care is a lethal cocktail. I simply cannot understand why anyone would not wear a seat belt or not restrain their child in their seat. A 45kph collision without a seat belt is the equivalent of falling off a six-storey building.
The Abu Dhabi emirate has one of the world's highest rates of road deaths, only slightly behind the African continent, with an average of 38 deaths per month due to traffic accidents. We cannot easily see people not wearing seat belts, but what is very noticeable is that most children are not restrained - this is clearly irresponsible behaviour and should be heavily monitored and penalised.
Given we were talking with young people, the subject moved onto the negative impact of technology. Text messaging while driving has become the new killer. Race drivers know that concentration is key to good driving. Tellingly, Abu Dhabi Police revealed that, in the three days BlackBerry messaging service was down, the city saw a 40 per cent drop in accidents.
While speed limits on major roads are designed to stop you from killing yourself, speed limits in residential areas are there to stop you from killing someone else. Hitting a pedestrian at 65kph kills them 80 per cent of the time, while a 50kph collision reduces fatalities to 20 per cent. A 1kph decrease in speed produces a five per cent reduction in fatalities.
However, the campaign was more focused on hope than fear. Henry Bradley, an NYU student, saw past numbers. "Given the shocking statistics of traffic fatalities in Abu Dhabi, it's comforting to know there's a force acting to try and correct that," he said.
Barry Hope is a director of GulfSport Racing, which is hoping to find an Arab F1 driver through the FG1000 race series. Join the UAE racing community online at www.gulf-sport.com or on Facebook at GulfSportRacing.