Top regional experts meet to promote long highway safety Saturday, 04 February 2012 01:18

Officials taking part in the meeting.

DOHA: Ways to promote traffic safety on long highways was the topic of a regional seminar that opened at the Doha Renaissance hotel on Monday.

The three-day seminar was held by Naif Arab University for Security Sciences in association with the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) of Qatar.

The opening ceremony was attended by Traffic Department director Brigadier Mohammed Saad Al Kharji, NTSC secretary general Brigadier Mohammed Abdullah Al Maliki, head of police sciences at Naif University Dr Abbas Abu Shama Abdul Mahmoud, Dean of Studies and Research Centre at the University Prof Dr Ahsan Mubarak Taleb and a number of department heads in Qatar’s Ministry of Interior.

The symposium aimed to support scientific knowledge in security and safety, specifications of long roads, the concept of international standards for highways and national long ways, implications of lack of security and safety on these roads and to take advantage of the Arab and international experiences in safety specifications and its applications in highways.

Addressing the seminar, Brigadier Saad Al Kharji stressed on the importance of the seminar in the light of rising accidents in GCC countries, while, explaining that statistics show that there is a remarkable fall in the number of road accident deaths in Qatar.

Brigadier Mohammed Abdullah Al Maliki emphasised on the cooperation between Naif University and NTSC in all issues related with traffic and hoped that the seminar will contribute in the research on reasons of traffic accidents.

Lt Gen Dr Abbas Mahmoud Abu Shama said that the management of normal traffic has become a concern on highways with more lanes and long routes where some will have irresistible temptation to increase the speed with wrong notion that there will be no road surprises in long highways.

Col Dr Mohammed Sulaim bin Mania presented a paper on ‘Concept and international specifications for highways and dual ways’.

He emphasised that the success of road transport is heavily dependent on the concerted efforts of all parties concerned to achieve integration between various elements in the traffic system and raising the level of road operation network with the highest rates of traffic safety and the lowest level of environmental contamination.

Presenting a paper on ‘ways and means of prevention of traffic accidents on long highways’ Dr Ahsan Mubarak confirmed that the traffic accidents in the Arab world constitute as one of the biggest social problems, where it is the third cause of deaths. He also indicated that the prevention of traffic accidents should include all three factors of traffic, a driver, vehicle and the road.

Col Dr Ali Dhabyan Al Rushaidi presented a paper on ‘Traffic statistics: A comparative study between long highways and other roads’. He recommended the importance of focusing on long roads as the results showed that most deaths occur on long roads, and the need to control long ways electronically to reduce the negative consequences of traffic accidents.

Brigadier Abdul Rahman bin Abdullah Al Muqbil presenting a paper on ‘Modern Techniques used in Modern Roads’ recommended the use of modern technologies in the development of security and traffic performance, need to develop specifications for the projects and the reduction of human intervention as much as possible in the role of irregularities.

He also stressed on the importance of developing this technology through the involvement of the private sector to ensure the quality and speed of interaction in the development.

The Peninsula

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