DUBAI // Friday is the worst day for deaths on the roads and most fatal high-speed accidents are caused by drivers in their early twenties.
"Deaths caused by speeding on Fridays, 11 out of every 20, outnumber the rest of the week," said Maitha bin Adai, chief executive of the Traffic and Roads Agency of the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai.
The agency analysed accident reports from 2010 and published the findings yesterday. They show drivers between the ages of 21 and 23 were responsible for 40 per cent of all traffic deaths, and 55 per cent of those caused by speeding.
The RTA plans a new publicity campaign in the coming weeks to encourage safe weekend driving.
It will target university students with brochures and messages on electronic billboards, including the campaign slogan: "Speeding shortens your life, not your time."
"The RTA have already done quite a few programmes that target youth, from children to high school and university levels," a spokesman said.
One programme asked university students to produce a five-minute short film with the title Your Safety in Your Distance.
The efforts may be yielding results: speeding as a cause of death in traffic accidents dropped from 18.6 per cent in 2009 to 13 per cent in 2010.
The high death toll on the roads at weekends supports the results of research conducted by Mostafa al Dah, an Emirati from Dubai who wrote his PhD thesis on the causes and consequences of road crashes in the emirate.
The 30-year-old doctoral student at Loughborough University in the UK analysed the records of about 18,000 injury-causing crashes from between 1995 and 2006.
In the last four months of 2006, 16.9 per cent of accidents causing injury took place on a Friday, more than any other day of the week. But in 2005, the year before the weekend was changed from Thursday and Friday to Friday and Saturday, Thursdays accounted for the highest number of accidents at 16.6 per cent.
“I can’t say for sure why accidents spike on a Friday, but I would speculate that it is because people deviate from their week-time driving patterns. They are more likely to drive to Hatta or to Abu Dhabi, and that increased mileage results in increased risk,” Mr al Dah said.
“Interestingly, in the UK, Friday is a traditionally low traffic accident day – maybe because people are coming back from work after a long week and just want to get home.
“But also probably because they are stuck in traffic jams so they can’t go very fast, whereas roads are more open in the UAE.”
He said the UAE also had a “weekend cruising culture” that exists in other parts of the world. “Yes, you do see groups gathering and cruising; whether that plays a part in the statistics is different matter.”
Mr al Dah’s research also found people aged from 19 to 30 accounted for around 43 per cent of all casualties on the road.
He said while first-year drivers are known to be responsible for a significant number of collisions in Dubai, that the 19-30 age group is responsible for more crashes might be explained by simply population dynamics.
“It could be just a reflection of the driving population in the UAE, rather than any specific problems with that age range,” he said. “There is a large young population, and many of them have access to cars because of the relative cheapness of purchasing one, the lower price of petrol, and high income.”
newsdesk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Amna al Haddad and Awad Mustafa
SPECS
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Mountain%20Boy
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How much of your income do you need to save?
The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.
In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)
Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.
The biog
Favourite films: Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia
Favourite books: Start with Why by Simon Sinek and Good to be Great by Jim Collins
Favourite dish: Grilled fish
Inspiration: Sheikh Zayed's visionary leadership taught me to embrace new challenges.
UAE%20SQUAD
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
MATCH INFO
Arsenal 1 (Aubameyang 12’) Liverpool 1 (Minamino 73’)
Arsenal win 5-4 on penalties
Man of the Match: Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Arsenal)
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
KEY%20DATES%20IN%20AMAZON'S%20HISTORY
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)
Power: 141bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: Dh64,500
On sale: Now
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Company%20Profile
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances