Lights turn red on Lebanese traffic offences

Lights turn red on Lebanese traffic offences

by Jocelyne Zablit
Published: October 22, 2008

BEIRUT (AFP) Something of a revolution is taking place on Lebanon's notoriously dangerous roads. Drivers are beginning to stop at red lights, to wear seat belts and no longer have their cell phones glued to their ears.

All thanks to a crackdown ordered by the country's new no-holds-barred Interior Minister Ziad Baroud who has unleashed a small army of traffic cops to impose law and order in a country where rules appear made to be broken.

"The laws concerning seat belts, cell phone use, speed, wearing a helmet while driving a motorbike and respecting traffic lights have been on the books for years," said Major Hanna Laham, in charge of traffic in one Beirut district.

"But in view of the high number of accidents we have started applying them more strictly."
According to police figures, some 500 people die and more than 6,000 are injured annually in traffic-related accidents in Lebanon, which has a population of four million.

Ziad Akl, founder of the Youth Association for Social Awareness (YASA), an organisation that lobbies for road safety, said the true fatality rate is closer to 870 a year as authorities don't keep count of people who die of their injuries several days after a car crash.

"The numbers have been going up steadily because of the chaotic situation in the country for the past three years which is also reflected on the roads," Akl told AFP, referring to political unrest which largely paralysed the government until the election of a new president in May.

Para seguir leyendo: http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/10/22/lights_turn_red_on_lebanese_traffic_offences/afp/