Two Filipino expats have died and four of their Batteel Bakery co-workers have been injured following a traffic accident on Al Shamal Road early Monday morning.
The collision occurred as seven people, including the driver, were traveling aboard a company bus going south toward Doha shortly after midnight earlier this week, according to several employees who spoke to Doha News on the condition that their names not be published.
As the 25-seat Nissan Coaster passed IKEA, it was struck on the driver’s side by a Toyota Land Cruiser traveling at a high rate of speed, the employees said. The impact caused the bus to roll a half-dozen times.
The driver of the SUV, a Qatari man, was traveling with his wife and is now in police custody, employees said. It is unclear if the couple sustained injuries.
A company memo identified the deceased as Roselyn Villarin and Ruben Evora, the bus driver. Both had been with the company for more than five years, employees said.
In the document, Hisham Saleh Al Mana, chairman of Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co, which Batteel falls under, wrote:
“Each was an important part of the Batteel Company family. They will be missed and held in high regard with all of us who worked with and knew them.”
‘We’ve lost a family member’
News of the tragedy had already reached at least one customer at the Batteel Bakery Gharafa on Al Ittihad Street, near the Sidra Medical and Research Center, when Doha News visited on Thursday.
The lone employee on duty declined to discuss details of the incident, saying she was friends with one of the victims and had been unable to sleep in recent nights.
Co-workers of the deceased had set up a memorial of flowers, candles and pictures of the victims inside their housing compound off Salwa Road.
“This is the first time something like that has happened,” said one employee who has been with the company for more than a decade.
“The mood here is off. People don’t like to say anything. People are sad. We’ve lost a family member,” he said.
Four employees remain in Hamad Hospital, one with spinal injuries. Another worker has been discharged.
The other passengers on the bus included four Filipinos and one Nepalese worker. There were conflicting reports of the nationality of the employee who has left the hospital.
Road woes
Reckless driving a widespread problem in Qatar, among locals and expats alike. According to the Qatar Statistics Authority, traffic accidents causing injuries or death climbed 15 percent year-over-year to 5,424 collisions in 2011.
The rate of accidents causing injuries jumped a further 12 percent last year, but the death rate fell around half a percent, as the number of vehicles on the road increased and the number killed stayed the same.
Roughly a year ago, Brigadier Mohamed al-Malki, General Secretary of the National Committee for Traffic Safety, said he would enact an “emergency action plan” to identify common accident spots, review traffic laws and signs and address other road safety issues.
Thoughts?
Sad, but all too common.
WHY WHY WHY!!!!!!! When will certain people realise that their method and style of driving is not only dangerous but also deadly? He had his wife with him. Did he have no regard for her safety? I wish upon them a very long time in custody and jail. Blood money payments should not be a way of ensuring/extracting a lenient sentence or no sentence at all. Maybe it would do the Justice system a big boost to actually highlight and publish the outcome of Police and Judicial process in this tragedy. Maybe, it could make others sit up and consider the consequences of their stupidity!!!!!
For the one person who has voted my post down, would you care to say something and elaborate your reasons. After all, this is a forum for opinions. If you feel strong enough to vote down, why not offer us your thoughts? Maybe it is because the forum only identifies people who vote up, it does not show those who vote down. Maybe they are just avoiding giving Trolls any recognition 🙂
it must be a LC driver who likes speeding and takes no critics!!!
Or you have a special friend like I do who votes down everything I write, no matter what :-p
the action plan is very simple – empower the police to pull over and caution motorists that speed, drive recklessly, drive dangerously and without due care and attention for other road users.
Without rolling enforcement it will never end. Speed cameras maybe slow them down for 5 seconds, that’s it. Somehow they think a LC has the handling capabilities of a Porsche. Really stupid driving here. The drivers the authorities like to blame aren’t great drivers but drive relatively slowly. The LC dudes just drive like idiots and much too fast.
With half the force directing traffic flow, that’s not going to happen.
Qatar has no middle ground when it comes to drivers. People drive either too fast on the road and wind up hitting you. Or you got people driving too slow on high speed roads then you wind up hitting them.
It’s because of the different cultures of driving. People drive differently depending on where they’re from, and their gender – Because women are generally shitty drivers.
LOL – which is why insurance rates are lower for women than men in the US :-p
No, GCC nationals are generally shitty drivers
You don’t hit the car in front of you just because it is driving too slow. BTW, I drive at maximum speed limit.
Very sad, but this accident will change nothing. The mighty land cruiser drivers are the masters of the universe. If an accident happens then it was the wish from ‘above’. That is how they think.
Speed Kills
Parts of the Autobahn in Germany have no speed limits and are some of the safest roads in the world. Drivers who get driving licences handed out in cereal boxes kill.
All motorways are safe roads. All cars go in the same direction, roads are generally well constructed and there are no pedestrians. Most deaths happen on minor roads.
Also if, as I think, you are arguing that speed doesn’t kill. Knock down a small child at 20 km per hour and knock down another child at 120 km per hour, and see which one manages to walk again.
“Drivers who get driving licences [sic] handed out in cereal boxes kill.”
What on earth does that mean? The driving courses and test in Qatar are more stringent than what we had in the US when I was growing up.
then why can no-one drive properly?
Then don’t ever think of trying to pass a UK driving test.
Don’t be ridiculous! The driving exam here was much simpler than the US driving exam. My test instructor advised me to “remove my seatbelt” while completing the range portion. Wha?! That said, I’ve never heard of a local actually completing a driving preparation course or even taking the exam. That’s what is meant by getting a driving license “out of a cereal box.” Fill out a form, pay a small fee, say “hello” to your father’s cousin and bingo… you’re now a licensed driver!
Were you a licensed driver in a Western country? If you were, they give out licenses like candy. However, for first time licenses (Qatar or Arab/Asia expats) you have to take the course & pass. There may be some abuse but I had many, many students that failed (sometimes more than once) & had to retake the course & test.
This is so desperately sad and unneccessary. It’s within the capabilities of the authorities to put and end to insane driving but they seem to lack the will to do so. I think a charge of murder would be in order in many cases.
Actually if it goes to court it would not be a charge of murder. It would be vehicular manslaughter. Murder requires intent and planning. I highly doubt that the driver woke up in the morning with a plan to drive in to the side of that vehicle and cause the death of anyone. The phrase in the article “at a high rate of speed” is really subjective and allows people to jump to conclusions as to what that speed may have been driving at. We also don’t know what the exact circumstances were. We don’t know if the driver of the van carrying the Batteel employees was driving in a manner that contributed to the accident, but he wasn’t Qatari so everyone assumes that he must actually be completely innocent.
Like the Villagio incident it will be that the majority of people on this forum will convict the person of being in the wrong simply because they are Qatari. Yet if you are an expat who allows your adopted child to go without eating over an extended period of time without insisting on hospitalization to help that child overcome the eating disorder and your child dies, then because you are an expat everyone cries “injustice” in the person being jailed.
Oh wait — it seems that almost all articles on Doha News are simply used by the majority as a way to bash Qataris no matter what the topic of the article is.
It was a side impact and “The impact caused the bus to roll a half-dozen times”. I don’t have to be an expert on Newtonian physics to determine who was speeding.
you dont but you have to be an expert “Newtonian” to take other things into consideration… everyone makes mistakes we’re all human maybe the driver thought it was safe to go forward but ended up being hit in the side… both might have been wrong?? we dont know..
you are correct, the driver may have moved forward when he shouldn’t. But to roll a 7 m long bus, full of people, half a dozen times you need to have a lot of momentum behind you.
This must be then your Second Law.
Hit from the left side, the bus might have been moving to the left lane and the land cruiser driver, coming from behind at a very fast speed on the same lane doesn’t care. The land cruiser barreled through the bus. That’s a possible explanation for a 7 times roll.
And as you yourself said “at a very fast speed”, so what is your point?
The point is you should reduce your speed if a vehicle start moving in your lane, doesn’t matter if you’re in the right of way. A collision between two vehicle at high speed is mutual destruction.
You should be moving at a speed where you can react to other traffic.
Driving on a public road at a speed that would cause a small bus to roll half a dozen times is NOT, in any perceptible way a ‘mistake’!
It really doesn’t require Newtonian intelligence to figure out that in order to roll over a mini van with 7 people in it,half a dozen times requires that mini van to be hit,at VERY high speed.
What about Qatarian physics ?
An object that is in motion will not change its velocity no matter what gets in it’s way?
Haha, you must be nominated for the next year’s nobel prize physics
Physics not your strong point then?
??
Satire not your strong point then?
Apologies for not recognising satire, bloody alcohol, sorry! 🙂
hahaha I’ll let you off 😉
Ah yes! heads I win, tails you lose!
I don’t think there’s a point in harping on whether the driver of the SUV was Qatari or not. We have reported dozens of times about other deadly car accidents involving non-Qatari drivers. The issue here should be that so many people in Qatar drive badly, and that problem needs to be addressed.
To some extent yes.All I can say is some Qatari drivers do have some skills for driving.That doesnt mean they use common sense.
If we’re gonna bash drivers depending on where they’re from, which is ridiculous, then I must say, worst drivers: Indians!
Also do you think Qatar’s traffic, and constant road works are contributing to the accidents in Qatar?
You admit it’s ridiculous,but still choose to bash,thereby further contributing to the ridiculousness of the issue!
Indeed I did
To many of the people here, it does matter. Sad, but true.
Correcrt AR “sad, but true”
I have been to a few countries where the driving standards are moronic, but only in GCC countries have I ever been subjected to, quite literally, homicidal acts of retribution because I was not able to clear their path quickly enough for them. No, I am not a slow driver!
Qatar is proving the Grand Champion of this horrendous driving, whereas the Desis are slow and dangerous, the nationals are arrogant and dangerous, they know it, they don’t care, worse, they are untouchable by the law, so they continue!
Well, don’t go to Saudia then. As bad as it gets here, trust, there it’s much worse 😉
No AR. The arrogance here is worse than Saudi. In Saudi many don’t know they are stupid. In Qatar they don’t care they are stupid?
Spot on.
The only way to effectively address this issue is enforcement of the law & by that I mean UNIFORM enforcement of the law.
So in a hypothetical situation,a traffic policeman pulls up an errant driver,turns out the errant driver is the policeman’s friend,cousin,uncle,nephew,(add on any connection I missed),they chat a bit,shake hands & off the errant driver goes on his merry way to potentially kill or maim someone on the road,that’s neither going to address nor solve the problem,this is much more deep seated than merely bad or errant driving,I would go so far as to say a cultural awakening would have to come first so solve this (& other) issues.
I’m fully aware that the charge would not be murder. But I think it should be in some cases (I didn’t specifically say in this case, because all the details have not been revealed )
A speeding Landcruiser or similar is akin to a lethal weapon…it should be treated as such by the driver and the justice system.
Lastly, where did I suggest the driver was Qatari?
I know of three kiwi kids who died in that “Villagio incident” .
Crass euphemism.
Haters gon hate bro
It doesn’t require rocket science to figure out that under the exact same circumstances but with the land cruiser driving at a reasonable speed,the accident
a) may not have occurred
b) would not result in two people dead & 4 hospitalized
When YOUR bad driving results in someone DYING then YOU are guilty of killing that person,call it what you like,murder or vehicular manslaughter or whatever you want to call it.
If it were a busload of Qatari Nationals that had been hit by an Expat driving recklessly then we might see some changes in policing policy, Qatar should look to its ‘big brother’ the UAE and see how it is done in Dubai, everytime I visit I see many police vehicles checking speed and pulling over drivers, they also have a minimum speed on certain roads.
sadly the couple will unlikely spend much time in jail…
Why would the “couple” spend time in jail? Only one person in a vehicle is responsible for the driving. Unless of course it was some strangely bizarre land cruiser equipped with two gas pedals and two steering wheels so that responsibility of driving was a shared act.
or perhaps if the other was distracting the driver or the two were verbally fighting on their way to wherever…. but what is really sad is because of their carelessness some families will never ever see their loved ones alive again
May they rest in peace
I wish these news stories included the names of adult offenders. Name and shame, name and shame!
they do, if you are an expat
Sad truth. Maybe I should have said I wish news stories CONSISTENTLY included the names of adult offenders.
Not really: in most cases they just use general terms like Asian, Arab, or citizen.
We know the Huangs names, we know the name of the teacher who defamed islam. After one month we are not even aware of the nationality of the suspects arrested for the murder of Lauren Patterson, or even the fact that they are still under arrest and not at large around Doha.
Anecdotal evidence; we know the names in both the case of the Huangs and the teacher because there are / were campaigns by supporters for their release. The local newspapers I have seen never published the names of the Huangs, only said that they’re Chinese Americans. You could argue that it’s more likely for the authorities to try and hide the names of suspects if they’re local, but how would you measure that!
Point taken
Chinese Americans…. LoL
They never report Iranian Qatari or Palestinian Qatari…..
they dont have to because the locals already know 😉
That would be an, eh, “interesting” (but really inane) topic for discussion. Normally, they just say Western, or as in the case of the murdered teacher, European.
However, as for the Qataris, please do keep in mind that our ethnicity isn’t mentioned in either our passport, birth certificate or even taken into account for the census. Nobody here uses the term, that I know of, uses the term Iranian Qatari. They may say you’re or your family is originally from Iran, but I have never heard anyone say Iranian Qatari.
In the U.S., terms like African, Asian, or Arab Americans are used all the time, and they are taken into account when a person takes part in the national census.
”Your family is originally from Iran” is a nicer way of saying ”you’re Irani-Qatari”! & yes it may not be mentioned on any official documents but why does it need to be? When I,as a short-term expat here know the difference in origin between an Al Mana & an Al Kuwari,surely everyone that needs to know,knows it!
We all know it’s true so why bother arguing or measuring it?!
What a shame and a disgrace that some innocent persons had to die because of the mistakes or sheer carelessness of someone else. People come here to work from far away places and to do a decent and honest job and not to loose their lives this way. What a pathethic state of affairs on the roads out here
dash board cameras and the allowance to give the videos to the police…that would be interesting
In this instance, dash cam footage WOULD be substantial proof, so you should be able to present it to the authorities. People just don’t do that here… Can you imagine how popular Qatar would be if people uploaded dash cam videos on YouTube? *flashes at Russia to move over*
yes,but i do not know if this legal. Also if it is possible to send those videos,for example a car that does zig zag at 120km/h
Right, I don’t know Qatar’s view on vigilantism so I can’t answer that question. Normally, legitimacy is a main concern. You’d have to go to court and everything as you become a witness to the alleged violation. It’s complicated operating outside the boundaries of the law, so people leave it to the police.
any primitive of any nationality should not drive, but stick to the mule, so the primitive does not take away other people’s lives. Those people in big SUV should all smash themselves to walls, so they don’t ruin other families.
But again, the problem exists because police do little or nothing. Enforce the laws, put educational program about traffic in schools, so that new generations will grow up learning to follow rules and not to be primitive.
I feel sorry seeing these young people loosing their lives. RIP.
I wonder if any action or follow up would be taken if people started fitting Go Pro camera’s in their cars (to show just how close people drive to bully them out of their way, to use the hard shoulder as another overtaking lane or weave in and out of the traffic in a dangerous manner with little regard for others safety) and then handed the evidence over to the authorities. On many occasions I could have noted a licence plate but simply thought, what is the point, I wouldn’t even be entertained if I did report it to the Police. A sad state of affair when you feel that the enforcers of the law will show so little interest in evidence presented to them.
Normally, places like Russia or China is where dash cams dominate due to the amount of vehicular fraud that takes place there. I don’t know if video-vigilantism will take off in Qatar because drivers here are generally stupid and/or a-holes, not criminals.
White Land Crusher…why am I not surprised
Norway – Free alcohol – safest roads in the world
Qatar – no alcohol – some of the most dangerous roads in the world.
I love my country 🙂
So you’re saying we should allow alcohol because it’s clearly the only way to solve our dangerous road? I don’t see the correlation, nor do I see the point you’re trying to make.
I’m just pointing the fact that even without alcohol, people there cause more death and destruction than people here, who have free access to alcohol, do.
Road traffic accidents deaths per 100,000
Qatar – 23.3
Norway – 5.2
First of all you’re choice of words is all in the wrong places. Death and destruction? ‘Ishd3wa’. Secondly Norway is no heaven. You guys have a lot of shitting on going on there too. And lastly I don’t know why you keep associating access to alcohol to with this particular topic.
Absolutely no correlation between the two. Do you how many people are killed by drunk drivers? Would that be greater or lesser if alcohol was literally free? Maybe Norway happens to have a fool-proof plan of action against drunk-driving.
I don’t see your point either. Drive along the Corniche on a Saturday morning and count the number of crashed SUVs littering the road. It’s scary. I watched one local leave a hotel restaurant and jump into his land cruiser after drinking a bottle of red wine at the table next to me. I was speechless. NO-ONE should drink and drive ANYWHERE. The results of such actions are well documented worldwide, hence the reason for zero tolerance across most of the world.
*plane voice over your head*
lol
Qatar’s problem is not so much alcohol related as it is a driving culture that hasn’t caught up with the vast increase in the numbers of licensed drivers & cars on the road. When I first started driving in Qatar in 1999 there were almost no women on the road & for that matter no traffic congestion except in the souq at night. Another problem in the failure to impress driving responsibility & safety upon everyone from the time they are old enough to understand the issue. It can change but will take time.
So sad. May they RIP and insha’Allah a lesson learned :'(
Not only locals, some expats too drive like their always heading to an emergency.