Two children and one adult were killed in three separate traffic accidents on Thursday and Friday of last week, according to residents and news media.
On Thursday, a 17-year-old Indonesian boy died in Al Khor after a tire on the bus he was riding in burst and caused the driver to lose control of his vehicle. Several others inside the vehicle suffered injuries, the Peninsula reports.
Speaking to Doha News, a family acquaintance said the teen’s body was taken back to Indonesia for the funeral.
Also on Thursday, two expats traveling in a car in the Rawdat al Rashid area collided with another car. One Indian was killed, Al Raya reports.
In the same area, but on Friday, ninth-grader Adarsh Kalyanaraman was killed when the car his father was driving collided with another vehicle, according to an obituary released by Birla Public School. The Peninsula reports that the child’s parents both sustained injuries and the mother remains in the hospital for treatment.
Dangerous driving is far too common in Qatar, which saw the number of traffic accidents resulting in injury increase 12 percent last year. The country has taken steps to reduce accidents by increasing fines and installing more radars across Qatar.
But according to some 4,300 residents polled in a Ministry of Interior survey, the best way to tackle bad driving is to increase police presence and enforcement on the roads and teach people the basics of traffic awareness and driving culture.
Thoughts?
Credit: Photo by Graham Holliday
Note: This article was corrected to reflect that despite media reports, the Indonesian boy died in a bus accident, not while riding a taxi.
drivers here always seem to be in such a rush! I have been in this country for just over 2 months only, and have lost count of the number of accidents i have witnessed. SLOW DOWN!
Some drivers are dangerous because they are slow? The ones sat in the middle lane driving at 20 kmh below the permissible speed limit are effectively a moving obstruction. Combine them with the 3rd lane headlight flashers and it’s almost the perfect storm. Fine, if they want to be overcautious about speeding, but do that in the right hand lane!
We are still waiting for the traffic police to enforce the laws they already have at their disposal regardless of nationality. Sitting at roundabouts and junctions is not effective policing. Where there is no deterrent and no chance of being caught, motorists will continue to drive recklessly and ignore the law. Motorists stop at junctions when they light is read because they know there is a camera but at the roundaabouts where there is no camera they go straight through the red light and who cares about other drivers.
Hopefully some of the dead drivers remove their genes from the gene pool, in some sort of perverse evolutionary driving expereince.
A little harsh…often people killed in accidents are not killed through any fault of their own, it can be someone else’s error. The problem as I’ve begun to see it is different cultures of driving, which makes it very difficult to calculate what someone is going to do. In Lebanon I actually find it easier because everyone drives aggressively. Here I never know if someone is going to pull out, lane hover or brake…nightmare
also it appears to me that cars don’t come with indicators here…
Indicators are car decorations, to be used for showing people when you are happy or have something to celebrate
without mentioning when police cars don’t use the indicators and cut me off because they zigzag….
Think that the police learned the art of traffic control from the Keystone Cops on the old black and white silent movies !!! They seem to be good at causing traffic jams and near misses from their attempts to direct traffic. Might be useful if they actually gave clear hand signals when directing so drivers didn’t have to guess whether they had to stop or proceed.
Every day , driving in Doha, I see children clambering about inside vehicles, unrestrained, sometimes even sitting on a parents lap in the front passenger seat. I have even, in astonishment, several times seen men driving with a toddler and once a baby, sitting on their lap as they drove.
If you have even a small bump, such a child will be catapulted at force inside the vehicle. It is fact, backed up by years and years of research. So why oh why is this simple method of safeguarding lives not enforced, both ensuring children are restrained by appropriate belts/seats in the rear of the vehicle, and adults wearing seatbelts?
If I saw a vehicle with an unrestrained child in my rear view mirror I’d always tap my brakes to see if the parents or child realised the issue. Sadly not, so I saw a lot of mini missiles for my sick enjoyment.
apparently children in the front seat,is the best airbag…
Many bad driving habits exist, many drivers who come from various regions bring their bad habits and what they think is acceptable to the party.Unrestrained children,yes,but then when you see all the windows open a child on the drivers lap,other children in the car and the driver texting at same time, you kind of loose hope.Speed cameras really dont enforce a high percentage of what causes accidents, mainly a money grab.Lots of laws and education about what is correct.Few traffic police who will ticket offenders,too many roundabouts. What I really find amusing are those who pull out from side roads and slowly pull into traffic without looking.They must be hoping or praying nothing will happen.
Traffic departments should remove all boards informing abt Speed Camara, as drivers slow down when they reach that point ans shoot up as the point is over,some drivers speedup high speed in residentialareas which small kids are in fear being hit…
Yes, most people get to know where the cameras are anyway,signs or no signs.But then the ones who care drive with some regard, but there are fews of those and they usually don’t drive a white Nissan Tida, Land Cruiser,Half Ton Truck and the list goes on.
Lots of sensible laws on the books, just limited enforcement of them. This is going to take larger fines, more impounding of cars, and driving bans for dangerous driving. It will also require the police to rely on more than cameras to catch bad drivers. They sting operations that they use in other countries in which officers witness bad driving and the radio ahead to patrol cars further down the road to stop the culprits.
In all of the my time here I have never seen a police car pull over a dangerous driver.
no matter what country your in, the police are above the law! dont you know? lol
You are correct in saying that dangerous driving can happen anywhere, however in many countries much is done to prevent it and the police are as accountable as any individual. And they do a good job of it. I drove for 30 years without fear of much but snow and ice. Now I am on full on alert at all times for idiocy, incompetence, disregard for ones own safety and others and no one at all to manage the chaos.
It is because there is no ‘will’ to do anything about it, it seems that the powers appear to be perfectly happy with the status quo?
If the responsible ministers, police chiefs, and high ranking bureaucrats had their big expensive cars, their their drivers, and their ISF escorts taken away, then they can be given 3yr old Camrys. That way the bully boys can’t distinguish them from the the rest of the inconsequential filth on the road, and they have to endure the same appalling behaviour we do. Tell said powers they can have their usual transport back when the road accident statistics are on par with Western countries. I reckon it would only take a few weeks.
Sorted! : )
Hohoho, I like the way you think 🙂
Oh dear you are going to face a backlash now….
I would like to say it is not just South Asian drivers that are a problem with their lack of road skills, many people of Arab descent drive like they have an invunerability shield around them. Ah well, Inshalla as they say.
that’s my observation no offense meant. i refer you to watch you tube videos for traffic in india includin the pedestrians. i see people walking along the expressway
The only way to change things is by education. Fines mean nothing if you are so rich, and I have a sneaking suspicion that some sections in Qatar consider them a badge of honor- just witness the high speed racing, swerving between vehicles, roaring up the hard shoulder, mounting kerbs and central reservations to gain one vehicles length ahead.
In the UK, there was an intensive television advertising campaign years ago, graphically and shockingly showing the results from vehicle impact on passengers- children thrown headlong through windows, people impaled on steering columns- all true, simulated following exhaustive research. The transformation in the UK was pretty rapid and very few would dream of taking even the shortest trip without a seatbelt and certainly not without safely restraining children. It has saved thousands of lives. Tell people what it means, show them how to protect themselves. Punishment after the fact is too late.
those type of adverts are still on tv in the UK, and i must agree they are affective, back home I don’t think I know a single person who would dare get into the car without a seatbelt. One click for every trip!
Unfortunately you can only educate those that want to be educated. The driving behaviour here kills, simple, as I have mentioned in previous post. Sadly the little boy mentioned here was ejected from his car, a seatbelt would have saved his life. From my professional experience (over 22 years) the way to reducing road trauma can be placed under three headings, Prevention (which includes education, road safety campaigns, better engineering etc), Intelligence (which drives the engineering, prevention and enforcement) and Enforcement (The police actually enforcing the law, which exists here, I’ve read it, seat belts, speed, reckless etc). Sadly as a powerless observer I see none of this happening, apart from perhaps some upgrading of roads, and people continue to die. Condolences to all three families. Terrible preventable collisions.
Yes.And in North America it is similar, first thing after starting car is buckle up.However I get a feeling after some conversations in Doha that the hope is pinned upon the next generation who will adhere to the current safety rules because they will internalize current education about road safety and seatbelts etc.But that education comes from school not watching parents.
Strange language here.
“One Indian was killed”. I hope this doesn’t become a trend where Doha News picks up the tone of reducing an entire life to “one Indian”. This is the language that can really get on people’s nerves when talking about racism in Qatar.
‘…whats wrong with being in the middle lean doing 20 below ? ” – Everything, when there is an empty lane(s) to the right! By needlessly occupying centre lanes, perfectly legal drivers, who are indeed driving to the conditions, get trapped behind, and unable to pass in the Land cruiser lane as you put, then feel the need to pass on the right. If those drivers, or their cars, don’t have the ability to drive to the speed limit when conditions allow, then move over. In UK it is actually a driving offence to do what they do.
driving skills/manners is regional too! in UK – UK driving culture; Qatar – that’s the driving culture!!! Like the Lion is to the forest, 4x4s is to Qatar roads.
The drivers I’m referring to are rarely driving 4x4s. passing slower vehicles on the right is an offence, here in Qatar. The reason that drivers, who wish to abide by the laws, pass on the right is because of middle-lane hogging drivers, who refuse to move to the right, where they SHOULD be.
As I pointed out, in another comment here, there is no ‘will’ to change driving standards in Qatar, that is the problem. Your final remark there simply validates that problem.
The authorities can bleat and moan all they like about the horrendous traffic fatalities in Qatar, but so long as people believe it’s OK because they are content with the lousy driving, the deaths will continue!
Yu know, perhaps we as residents need to take some responsibility and actively stand up for things we are stating here. Perhaps next time I see a woman with a baby or toddler on her lap in the frock seat I should wind down my window and politely inform her she is putting her child in danger as much as if she was holding him over a precipice. Perhaps as residents we should try or smile and say please belt up when you next see a child standing between the two front seats.
Even better, we need a help line to call and report the dangerous idiots who risk all our lives on a daily basis as the perform manoeuvres which the rest of us swerve to avoid. I for one would be hey too, I have been a hairs breadth from injury or death too many times,