Citation

Abbas K. Proc. Road Saf. Four Continents Conf. 2010; 15: 142-154.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Conference Sponsor)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

A 3-step procedure to assess road safety conditions is developed and applied to Egypt as a prototype example. Assessing road safety culture represents the first step in judging the road safety situation in a developing country. This can be represented through 14 aspects, namely:Political, Institutional, Safety Lobbying, Safety Research, Engineering, Accident ManagementSystem, Evaluation, Behavior, Legislation, Enforcement and Standards, Emergency, Education, Mass Media, Coordination and Cooperation. These were applied to describe and assess the road safety condition in Egypt. This is followed by comparing severity indicators among several countries in an effort to determine the road safety position in Egypt. The third step involved compiling and analyzing accident records for five main rural roads in Egypt. Most of the highly contributing causes are driver related including loss of control of driving wheel, over speed, misjudgment of traffic gap, sudden slowing/stoppage. Two other vehicle related causes are frequently mentioned, i.e. tire burst and vehicle turnover/turn off the road. The paper concludes by developing an integrated road safety program composed of 16 fields of actions namely: institutional, land use planning and management, travel demand management, road infrastructure improvement, legislation, traffic-related, accident-related, vehicle-related, driver-related, traffic police-related, enforcement, educational, mass-media, community related, health-related and research-related measures. These should complement each other and work together in a supportive way to tackle the particular road safety problem.