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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 'Death road' fails test
By Mariz TadrosIn an attempt to curb the increasing number of traffic accidents taking place on the road from Cairo to Suez, the section extending from Katameya to Ain Al-Sukhna has been closed. The closure followed the death of 26 workers in a collision of two trucks last week. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Suez municipal council.
The road was never officially opened to public traffic in the first place. It was being tested by transport authorities, but there were no signs or billboards informing motorists that the road was still under construction. As a result, many assumed that it was safe to use.
The accident, certainly not the first on what has been labelled "death road", prompted the municipal council to put forward a series of recommendations to the governor of Suez to make the Suez-Ain Al-Sukhna and the Cairo-Suez roads safer. On the Suez-Ain Al-Sukhna road, it was suggested that there should be signs indicating the locations of intersections. It was also recommended that the road be widened and its lanes clearly delineated.
As for the Suez-Cairo road, one suggestion was that a new road needed to be constructed independently from the existing road to link the quarries in the area.
As safety measures were being discussed in the council, more lives were being lost. "Which accident are you inquiring about?" asked Dr Hazem Shawki, head of the emergency unit for Suez when Al-Ahram Weekly called him on Monday asking about the 26 workers who had been killed. On that morning, a microbus overturned on the road from Sukhna to the Red Sea, killing two people and injuring 13, including one seriously. "During the last two months, 70 people have died on the road from Suez to Katameya. That's just in two months. There is something terribly wrong," he said.
According to Shawki, the road is in many ways unsuitable for traffic since it is not lit at night and is uneven and bumpy. Trucks coming from opposite directions, to and from the quarries on the sides of the road, make accidents almost inevitable. The fact that there are hardly any traffic officers on the road does not help, especially when drivers are speeding.
Speeding was the cause of both accidents which took place this week, Shawki said. In both instances, the injured were transferred to Suez Hospital, the closest to the site. In the case of the 26 workers, it took the ambulance more than 45 minutes to arrive. "If we can use helicopters for emergency purposes such as these, many more lives could be saved," Shawki said.
Road accidents caused more than 5,000 deaths in 1998. While speeding was deemed the prime reason, technical faults and many roads unfit for driving were also blamed. For example, signals were installed and traffic men stationed on the Mansoura road after a massive outcry went up against the ever-rising number of accidents taking place there. However, once the protests died down, both signals and policemen were removed. Sceptics have pointed out that instead of building new multi-million pound roads, the government should focus on upgrading existing ones and ensuring that traffic regulations are observed.
